The Engineer
by demonicnargles
Summary: Shepard is as cruel and racist a person as you can find, but when you need the very best... Shepard the Engineer tinkers, experiments, and murders his way through the galaxy as he tries to stop the crazy alien attacking human colonies. The ambassador may have stuck him with some alien allies, but they won't get in his way, if they know what's good for them...
1. Anderson

AN: What? demonicnargles is still alive? Surely your eyes deceive you.

This is an idea I had about a Shepard who was actually a dislike-able person. You see very few renegade Shepards here, and of those, most are just paragons who say badass things and kill the really bad guys. College Fool wrote 'Renegade Reinterpretations', which bucks that trend, but otherwise I didn't see much in the way of the truly pragmatic, amoral renegades.

So get ready for a cruel, racist Shepard, for whom diplomacy is just a thing you use when you aren't able or allowed to kill someone.

Don't expect frequent updates. :(

* * *

 **Captain David Anderson**

"It's obviously a trap."

Captain David Anderson took a deep breath, and resisted the urge to rub the bridge of his nose. After several weeks of calm, prepping the _Normandy_ for its maiden voyage, he had dared to hope that perhaps Shepard would manage to impress Nihlus a bit before revealing his paranoid tendencies. But, of course, on their very first mission, something just _had_ to go wrong. Eden Prime was under attack, and the distress call had set off Shepard on one of his paranoid streaks again.

Nihlus didn't seem all that surprised, which meant either that he already knew of Shepard's reputation within the Navy, or that he agreed. The turian merely asked why.

"A top-secret mission, known only to a few. A stealthed ship undetectable by any modern sensor equipment. A sleepy little colony a safe distance from the Terminus systems. And yet, the moment we come within comm range, we receive an urgent, apparently live distress signal."

Anderson shook his head. "We just happened to receive it. It wasn't sent directly to us."

"And yet it started _exactly_ as we entered comm range."

"And no one is going to trick an Alliance marine into requesting offworld backup when he doesn't need it. And you can hear the gunfire. That they sent the message at that particular moment is just a-"

"There is _no such thing as coincidence_."

Anderson took another deep breath, trying to determine how best to save face in front of the turian Spectre who was also to be Shepard's evaluator. The last thing we wanted was for Nihlus to write Shepard off before their first mission. But the turian seemed interested, rather than annoyed.

"Please, Specialist, continue," the turian urged, watching expectantly.

"A comm that starts as soon as we enter range, yet gives no details about the location, attacking strength, numbers, composition, goals, arrival time, weapons, or any other useful data. They don't identify themselves in any way. They request haste and evacuation, but don't give their own location."

"Shepard," Anderson interjected, "The chances of someone bluffing the whole unit into thinking they are under attack, when they're not-"

The Specialist waved his objection away. "This unit wasn't tricked. They're probably dead." Anderson did a double-take, suddenly unsure of where Shepard was going with this. "The comm came in too quickly after we entered range for it to have been prompted by a bluffed attack, even if they had warning from the moment we entered the system. And notice, at the end of the message, it ended in static."

Anderson knew that static could come from many sources, but was not about to try and out-smart his Chief Engineer, ground team leader, and nominal XO.

"If their equipment had been damaged, then the comm would have either cut off immediately, or continued in poorer quality. Jamming would have the same effect. Lieutenant, skip to the end. See, notice the signal strength indicator for the message. Still full bars. But the message is pure, constant static, no variation at all. You can't get that from wireless connections, any connection weak enough to end in total static is too damaged to even get picked up by a receiver. Which means they were _sending_ static _on purpose_."

Nihlus seemed enthralled. "And for what purpose was that?"

"To fake a sudden, unexpected end to the comm, as an excuse for ending it before giving any info."

The Captain doubted this was true. "And why would they use static, then, instead of a more realistic way of cutting it off?"

"Because they were working too quickly to put together a good fake. Notice how, even when behind cover and not getting shot at, the camera is still very shaky. This also means we only get a good look at a single marine. Notice, also, how, despite the camera facing the direction of their alleged attackers, we never see a single one of them. They didn't have time to get a good video together. They probably only found out about this around the time we departed the Citadel, so they didn't have time to edit together a good video, to get some stand-ins with non-firing weapons, and to think of minor details like the end of the video."

Damn it all, Shepard was doing it again, convincing him that maybe, just maybe, there was something to this. But even if all this was true, they still needed to investigate. He turned back to the static of the video, doubtfully. "Joker, take us in, fast and quiet. This mission just got a lot more complicated."

Joker had barely given an acknowledgment, when Shepard stepped in aggressively. "NO! Don't you see, they started the comm the moment we entered range, which means our stealth _isn't working_. They've already killed all of the marines on the surface, and we'll be a squishy frigate flying blind into enemy territory!"

Nihlus mandibles were held tightly against his jaw, indicating stress. His flanged voice sounded more serious that Anderson had ever heard before. "Even so, we have to recover the beacon, before it's too late. And even if the message was faked, it could also have been meant to scare us off until they could finish whatever it is they're doing down there."

"It doesn't _matter_ what they're doing down there, because if they have enough manpower to mow down the entire colony's defense force without them getting off an actual distress signal, they've certainly got enough to take down a single frigate and the handful of marines aboard!"

Anderson cut off the discussion before Shepard descended into another screaming fit of paranoia. "We'll just have to be careful." Holding up a hand to forestall Shepard's inevitable objection, he continued, "Suit up and meet down in the cargo hold. I'll give you your orders at that time."

Shepard looked mutinous, glaring at him with a furious gaze, the scars on his bald head throbbing, and for a brief moment, Anderson worried that the the other man might lose it, right there in front of the turian Spectre. But instead, Shepard stalked off with heavy steps, muttering recriminations not-so-quietly under his breath.

Nihlus watched Shepard leave, turned to give Anderson a worried glance, and then quickly moved out of the room.

Anderson finally gave in to the urge to rub the bridge of his nose. _There_ was the headache he always got when working with Shepard.

* * *

"It's probably a trick, to lure us into an ambush."

Anderson wasn't going to put up with any more of Shepard's conspiracy theories until after the mission was over. No threat had materialized as they approached the colony, and even now, approaching the first drop point, there was no indication that anyone in the colony was aware of their presence. He raised his voice to be heard over the howling wind. "Your mission will be to recover the beacon. That is your top priority."

The Normandy swooped down low for personnel drop-off. Private Jenkins turned to the turian Spectre, still seemingly impressed with the high-tech brand-name gear the Council agent was sporting. "Nihlus, you're coming with us?" Excitement colored his tone.

The turian shook his head shortly. "I move faster on my own."

"You'll _die_ faster on your own, too."

And there was Shepard's ray of sunshine. Nihlus paused a moment to fix the offending marine with a glare. "I'm a highly experienced agent, Shepard, as you will learn on our missions together."

Shepard was dismissive. "Sure, sure. But they know about this mission, so they know we, and more specifically, you, are coming. And when something happens to make you let your guard down, you're gonna fall for it, because you're some bad-ass Spectre who knows he's invincible. And then you're gonna d-"

"That's enough, Specialist!" Anderson roared, and jerkily motioned Nihlus to jump off. Anderson gave a short beep on the comm to signal Joker to move on, and watched the Spectre move off, before turning back angrily to Shepard. "You know you need to impress Nihlus, so don't you _dare_ ruin all of our work by running your fool mouth!" Kaidan and Jenkins looked away awkwardly, and Anderson quickly remembered that they were not alone.

A few moments of tense silence followed, finally broken by Joker's voice as they approached the second drop-point.

"Remember, Shepard, the beacon's your top priority, even over survivors." Seeing Shepard's glare, Anderson continued quickly. "This mission's yours now, Shepard. Good luck!"

The Captain watched them leave, then moved back into the ship, hoping fervently that Shepard hadn't already set humanity back another several years from their first Spectre. Fortunately, despite his abysmal personal manner, Shepard was quite an excellent leader in combat situations. Perhaps things wouldn't be so bad, after all.

* * *

They were worse. Nihlus, dead. The murdering, rogue, turian Spectre, escaped. The colony's defense force, wiped out except for a single woman. A giant dreadnaught of unknown origin, with such a powerful mass effect drive that it could make landfall. Geth, sighted outside the Perseus Veil for the first time in centuries, attacking human colonies.

And Specialist John Shepard, only now regaining consciousness in the med bay, hours later.

Anderson stood aside to let Gunnery Chief Williams pass out the doorway of the med bay, and then walked quickly inside and over to John's bedside, finding him scanning his own chart. Doctor Chakwas looked distinctly put out, which suggested that Shepard was nitpicking her work, again.

"... and these readings are, of course, completely normal, given my circumstances, which, like all other medical information, should _absolutely not be discussed in front of anyone but the patient_."

The Captain decided that this was probably a good time to intervene, before the Chakwas and Shepard started arguing. "How's our XO holding up, Doctor?"

Doctor Chakwas pursed her lips and glared at Shepard, before relaxing. "He seems to be in perfectly good health."

Anderson motioned for the door, indicating that Chakwas should leave. He felt slightly bad, kicking Chakwas out of her own office, but he didn't want to move the discussion to his own office and make the crew think he might be punishing Shepard for the mission. After all, despite all the bad, they had at least recovered the beacon intact, if somewhat damaged.

Anderson took a seat on the bed across from Shepard, and decided to ease into the discussion. "So, since when have you started using cryo grenades as part of repair work?"

Shepard's lips twitched in what might have been a smile, but quickly smoothed back to their normal impassive expression. "Since unknown alien technology started superheating while only a few feet away from me. And technically, it wasn't a grenade, since I omitted the explosive component from the omni-generated tech mine."

Anderson smirked. It was just like Shepard to improvise a scientific solution on the fly, in less than a second, while, according to Chief Williams, being tractor-beamed toward said alien technology. "Well, apparently there was some slight damage to the beacon, since it turned off, and we haven't been able to activate it, since."

Shepard rolled his eyes. "It was already damaged, given how much it was overheating."

Anderson became more serious. "So, what was the beacon's purpose? I can't understand why Saren would be after it, unless it did more than pull in nearby people. There's not enough of it to be anything like the Mars archive."

"Unclear. I haven't worked with Prothean technology before, and barely had time to grab Jenkins after catching up with the group before being knocked out."

"Right, and that's part of what I don't understand. From what the Lieutenant Alenko said, the beacon dropped you pretty gently, but you seemed unconscious even before that."

Shepard seemed uncomfortable. "It was very painful. Caused an intense headache, made my vision black out, induced visual and auditory hallucinations, and gave me nightmares different from my usual."

"Hallucinations?" Anderson sat forward. "Or visions? What did you see?"

Shepard shook his head. "I doubt it. And even if it were, they would have been intended for Protheans, and so... well, unless... I mean, if they had... assuming a similar brain structure to that of known Council races, it could have... no. It still- wait, maybe images, without context or meaning?"

Anderson grinned. "So, you agree?"

"...Probably," Shepard nodded. "Based on my experience, it seemed like it tried to psychically impart information directly to the user. That would explain why Saren didn't bother to take it with him. Leaving it behind to have it destroyed would have ensured that no one else got the info."

"Which was?"

Shepard shrugged. "The technology was meant for Protheans. Whatever it might have been, it didn't make much sense to me."

"But what did you see? Anything you can make out might help us know what Saren is planning."

"I saw some sort of battle, a bug, and a planet."

"... Could you be more detailed?"

"No, that's about as clear as it was."

Anderson leaned back onto his hands, sighing deeply. "The Council isn't going to like this."

Shepard looked up suddenly, deadly serious, eyes sharp. "Oh, I think they'll like it just fine."

Anderson was only confused for a moment, then remembered who he was talking to. "Oh?" he prompted, leaning back and awaiting the next outrageous conspiracy theory.

"Well, the Council sabotaged your entry into the Spectres, right?" Shepard waited for Anderson's nod before continuing. "When you told me about that, it made a lot of sense, because otherwise we would expect to see a lot more Spectres who aren't turian, asari, or salarian. There was no way they were going to let humans have one if they other races didn't, yet. So they engineered an event with plausible deniability, blamed you for it, and swept it under the rug. This is just the latest attempt."

"You don't think that using Saren was a bit too obvious? Wouldn't they have chosen someone else for the second time around?" Anderson didn't normally like to humor Shepard too much with his paranoia, lest he encourage it, but he couldn't help but feel a bit vindicated about his own performance, knowing that someone else believed that he would have qualified without Saren's betrayal.

"No, see, that's the beauty of it." Shepard's grin became quite creepy indeed, and Anderson had to fight not to laugh at what some in the crew refered to as Shepard's 'Rape Face'. "They have _you_ on this mission, so they can use your past history to throw even more dirt on the mission. They use your past alleged unreliability against you, and make your complaints seem driven by your personal history with Saren."

Anderson was suddenly unsure if he was still humoring Shepard, or actually believing him. "And you think they would destroy an entire colony just for that?"

"But _they_ didn't destroy the colony. It was the geth, if that's truly what those things were. The geth allegedly drove the quarians almost to extinction, but Alenko, Jenkins, and Williams slaughtered them by the dozens. Not to mention whatever was going on with the automated corpses. And besides, the Council hardly seems broken up when aliens sack entire human colonies." Shepard's tone became more bitter and cynical. "Such things are, of course, concerning to them, but they couldn't possibly get involved in _human_ affairs, never mind that the Council encouraged us to settle next to the Terminus systems to begin with, and prohibited colonization almost everywhere else."

Shepard calmed down for a moment, then continued. "And while the mission is underway, Saren kills the only Spectre to have recommended a human for Spectre candidacy."

It was all becoming eerily too possible, and Anderson sat back up, agitated. "But they can't get away with it, this time! We have proof that Saren was involved! The dockworker witnessed him fight and then murder Nihlus. We found his blood, and part of his arm."

Shepard shook his head. "Ah, but will they believe the dockworker? And how will we verify that the blood is Saren's? Will we verify it against samples the _Council_ provides?" Anderson had a cold feeling in his gut. Despite Shepard's wild theories, occasionally some of them proved to be true, or close to true, like his allegations of insider sabatoge of the Alliance outpost on Elysium. And here, now, this was sounding like one of Shepard's more plausible theories. "And the same with the arm. Who's to say it doesn't belong to some other alien, and never mind that Saren doesn't move his left arm that much any more? Just you watch, they'll ignore the dockworker, lose or falsely compare the blood, dismiss the arm, and all without holding an official investigation."

Anderson despaired for a moment, then shook it off. This was Shepard, after all. The Council wouldn't do that, would they?...

But just in case, he would make sure to ask Shepard for some ideas on how to get around any possible obstructions.

* * *

"The C-Sec investigation turned up no evidence to support your charges of treason, Ambassador. Your motion to have Saren..."

The asari councillor paused, looking past Anderson at something behind. The Captain turned, to see Shepard jogging up the stairs, two at a time, followed closely by Jenkins, Williams, Alenko, and, most surprisingly, given Shepard's sympathies, _aliens_. A huge, red-crested krogan. A turian C-Sec officer. A short quarian woman.

The turian councillor spoke up. "Your motion to have Saren removed from the Spectres is _denied_ , human. This session-"

The asari councillor Tevos cut him off with a wave of her hand. "Just a moment. It appears there is more to discuss." A short glare cut off any retort from Councillor Sparatus.

Ambassador Udina appeared at a loss for just a moment, before he collected himself. "Councillors, this is Specialist Shepard. Um, Specialist, I assume you have something to contribute to our hearing on Saren's attack on Eden Prime?"

Shepard nodded. "What evidence have we presented so far?"

Councillor Valern, the salarian, spoke quickly. "The dockworker Stevens was brought up, but one traumatized person who though he heard an unfamiliar name is not enough evidence. Your blood sample was contaminated, and as Saren is obviously not missing any part of his arm, that was also dismissed. The C-Sec investigation turned up nothing. Do you have anything to contribute beyond those?"

Shepard looked around at those gathered in the Council chambers, now utterly silent while waiting for his reply. "Strange how awkward it gets when you mention all the evidence you are ignoring right in a row."

"Your trumped-up so-called evidence isn't worth the breath you spend telling us about it. But of course, what else can we expect from Captain Anderson's little pet project?" Saren's voice was laced with scorn.

Shepard practically vibrated with rage, but he still spoke in a calm, if somewhat louder, voice. "Interesting that the blood sample was contaminated, since we tested it before handing it over."

Councillor Valern explained easily, "It may have become contaminated in transit. Unfortunate, but not the work of any cover-up."

Shepard merely smiled. "Interesting. _I_ didn't say anything about a coverup." Ignoring the councillor's flinch, he moved on. "Also, I didn't hear anything about your asking Saren to come in and present his intact arm as evidence."

Councillor Sparatus was both scathing and dismissive. "Spectres don't answer to you, and top agents like Saren have more important things to be doing that wasting time on the Citadel."

"It was also very interesting that the C-Sec investigation finished so quickly. Very quickly. Barely after the Normandy arrived on the station, in fact. I have that investigator here," he gestured to the turian at his side, "And he claims never to have received any blood sample, contaminated or otherwise, nor did he receive the partial arm. And he further claims that he was ordered off the investigation in time for this hearing. And that he was denied any access to any information on Saren's activities. I'm not sure what you think he was supposed to be investigating, without any of our evidence and denied any of yours."

A thick silence settled around the room.

"But not to worry, because we actually have another blood sample. Saren lost most of his forearm, so there was quite a lot to collect." Shepard held up a small vial, and then handed it to the nearby C-Sec officer. "I'm sure that you'll claim the last sample was lost only accidentally, but at least we can be sure that this one won't."

The asari councillor was glancing around, apparently confused. Or maybe that was just the impression she was trying to give, which is probably what Shepard would have suggested. "It sounds like you are accusing the Council of-"

"I accuse the Council of nothing. If, after I speak, you feel you have a guilty conscience, then that says more about you, than me."

He glanced at each of the Councillors, who all seemed hesitant to speak further. "So, at the very least, it seems that the investigation would need to be done over, with less obstructionism this time. I see what passes for a smug face among turians over there, Saren, and I'm sure it has nothing to do with the small break-in that occured recently on the Citadel, near the Spectre Archives, where the blood samples of active Spectres are stored."

Saren squawked in indignation. "Baseless accusations! I had nothing to do with that! Your motives are transparent, covering for your clumsy handling of the beacon that damaged it too much for use."

Shepard smirked. "Interesting that you know about that beacon."

"With Nihlus dead, his files passed to me. I don't share his optimistic views on you humans. You aren't ready to join the Council. You aren't even ready to join the Spectres!"

Udina made to shout back, but Shepard was on a roll. Hopefully this was not one that would get him in trouble. One wrong move here, and humanity might not get a Spectre for an asari lifetime. "Are you sure you learned about the beacon from those files... and not from personal experience? We have some interesting audio pulled from a geth memory core." Shepard motioned at the quarian, who moved forward, holding out her omni-tool.

 _"Eden Prime was a major victory! The beacon has brought us one step closer to finding the Conduit."_

 _"And one step closer to the return of the Reapers."_

Saren growled back. "Fake! I never said that!"

Councillor Tevos seemed in a daze. "That second voice... that's Matriarch Benezia! She..."

Saren's head snapped over to look at the asari so fast that his mandibles audibly clicked against this head. But Shepard wasn't done, yet.

"And if that was fake, then why did you spend so much money, and make an enemy of the Shadow Broker, trying to kill the quarian for having it? Both Fist and his files reveal your involvement."

Shepard moved over to the railing of the platform, grabbing it and leaning forward aggressively. "And besides, you _dumb lizard_ , you forgot that when the bombs failed to go off on Eden Prime, that meant all the security camera footage was left behind!"

Anderson almost fell over in shock. Of course! Alenko's report had mentioned that Shepard stayed behind the group for quite some time after disabling the bombs, but hadn't detailed what the Specialist had been doing, and Anderson had forgotten to ask.

Shepard stretched out his omni-tool, and everyone in the Council chamber watched in horror as the footage showed Nihlus stumble across Saren, speak briefly, and then suddenly dodge out of the way when Saren drew on him. There was no audio, but the footage shook as almost a minute of intense fighting took place, both Spectres using everything at their disposal to eliminate the other. Nihlus pulled several grenades at some point, which Saren shielded against with biotics. The smoke cleared, leaving Saren apparently unharmed, until he stood shakily, and part of his left arm fell off, bleeding heavily. Another few seconds of combat and Saren finally moved in close and crushed Nihlus' skull with a biotic punch, before limping off-screen, leaving part of his arm behind, and trailing a drizzle of blood.

The Council turned back to Saren, only to find that his hologram had vanished sometime during the video.

* * *

It was not a complete surprise that his life took a turn for the worse immediately after this latest run-in with Saren. But at the very least, being relegated to desk work was a step up from destroying entire refineries full of workers and screwing up a trial run at being a Spectre.

Maybe next time he ran into Saren, his situation would improve, instead? Anderson felt a small smile creeping onto his face. Despite his own circumstances, he was in a good mood. Shepard had come through, just like Anderson had argued he would back when they had been deciding which candidate to support for the Spectres.

To be sure, there was a bit of luck, in that Shepard had stopped by the Presidium medical clinic for supplies at the moment Dr. Michel was being accosted by Saren's thugs, but from there it was all Shepard. Hunting down Fist, tracking down the quarian, getting into the Presidium Tower without technically having permission, and getting the Council to back down in their own meeting Shepard wasn't even invited to.

And to top it off, the anti-social Shepard had done so while recruiting allies. _Alien_ allies! Anderson could hardly believe this was the same man who led the Terra Firma recruitment drives every other year. And while none of his allies were batarian, it was still impressive to see the Butcher of Torfan making allies outside of his own species.

His smile increased when Shepard walked into the Ambassador's office. Now, they could finally give _Spectre_ Shepard all of the resources he would need for his first mission: to find and apprehend former Spectre Saren Arterius.

Udina was the first to begin speaking, of course. "You aren't exactly making my life easy, Shepard, starting fire fights down in the wards. But I think I can overlook it this time, given your results. The Council has, after some consideration, decided to induct you into the Spectres, even without any qualification missions. This is a-"

"I refuse."

Anderson did a double-take at Shepard, speechless. Where had this come from? Udina, meanwhile, was quick to react. "This is huge step for humanity, Shepard. Refusal is not an option!"

"I think you will find that it is. I refuse."

Anderson decided to step in before Udina got up to screaming volume. "Specialist, this is part of your duties for the Systems Alliance. I know that it-"

"Members of the Systems Alliance Navy may not work for or represent foreign governments."

Anderson took a few seconds to try and remember exactly what those rules were. Certainly Shepard had looked them up, but the Captain hadn't exactly seen this coming.

This lapse gave Udina the opening he had been waiting for. "Shepard! Humanity has been working _years_ for this opportunity! _I've_ been working years for this opportunity! This is the first step towards a Council seat, and I won't let you ruin it for us! You are going to join the Spectres, and had _damn well_ better impress the Council with your work! How can you- no wait, I don't even care! And if you even _think_ that-"

Shepard turned away from the ambassador like he wasn't shouting in his face, and toward Anderson. "Will that be all, sir?"

Trying to avert a full Udina meltdown, Anderson pulled the ambassador back. "Udina, why don't you let me talk to Shepard, and come back in, say, half an hour."

Udina glared at Shepard, Anderson, and then back at Shepard, his face more red than was probably healthy. Literally trembling with rage, he nonetheless managed to sound almost calm as he walked out. "I'll go get your team, Shepard. We can fill out all the paperwork when I get back." And then he was out the door, too far away for Shepard to reply with any objection.

It was only now that Anderson realized he had just effectively kicked Udina out of his own office, but it was too late to do anything about it, now. He gestured for Shepard to take a seat at the table over to the side, then sat down on the other side.

Anderson let out a long sigh, and tried his very best not to let his irritation show in his voice. "Shepard, why is this the first I am hearing of this?"

"Of what?"

Anderson slammed a hand down on the table. "Don't play games with me, Shepard! Why is this the first time I am hearing that you don't want to be in the Spectres?"

"You never asked."

Anderson carefully took a deep breath, then let it out, slowly. He could feel the Shepard-induced headache coming on. "Specialist, you knew that you were going to be observed as a possible candidate. Why didn't you say anything?"

"I was fairly certain that I would not be nominated after the trial missions."

Anderson stopped, and looked, really _looked_ , at Shepard. Surely he wasn't implying... Of course he was. This was Shepard. If he thought it was in his interests to look incompetent, of course he would. If he thought it was in his best interests to deliberately antagonize a Council Spectre, of course he would.

It was, after all, the reason he had bounced from commander to commander, captain to captain, over the years. Shepard wanted to work in a lab, but the brass wanted him to use his talents as a leader in the field. Shepard got assigned to front line duty. Shepard was so caustic and cruel, but not technically insubordinate, that the commanding officer booted him out after a few months, getting him 'punished' by relegating him to desk work, which allowed Shepard time for his own experiments. After a time, some new commanding officer would see Shepard's exemplary combat record, and the cycle would start again.

Anderson had known, going in, that it would be tough getting Shepard to work on the front lines, willingly. But if he could make it work, then the Alliance would finally be able to make full use of Shepard, the only man to survive a week of thresher maw attacks on Akuze. Shepard, the Lion of Elysium, whose jury-rigged booby-traps and technically-not-illegal improvised chemical weapons kept the pirate army at bay for a full day during the Blitz, killing thousands. Shepard, the Butcher of Torfan, who led an army of two thousand against an entrenched pirate moon base filled with nearly ten thousand slavers and assorted scum, and killed them all, to a man.

Although that last part had, admittedly, been somewhat discouraging. There had been a lot of controversy over the circumstances in which many of the batarian slavers had died, and the 'tragic mix-up' that ended with scooping out the eyes of all batarian dead in a 'misguided effort to follow their traditions'. Anderson wasn't sure he could believe that Shepard, who was well-versed in all alien biologies, could possibly be so clueless about their cultures. But there hadn't been any witnesses willing to speak out against him, and so the Navy, despite massive protest by the Hegemony, had declined to prosecute Shepard for any crimes afterward. All of the pirates were dead, and to the surviving Alliance soldiers, Shepard was the heroic, genius soldier that crushed the batarian presence in the Verge once and for all, and they wouldn't hear one word against him. Even now, despite Shepard's impersonable manner, the survivors of Torfan still looked at him in awe whenever they met.

At any rate, Anderson had made a plan. There was a new, secret, prototype ship being developed. Cutting edge technology. And it was going to need a top-tier engineering staff. And who better to pick than the man with more degrees in more fields than Anderson had previously known existed? Shepard would get all the science he wanted aboard the new ship... _if_ he agreed to also be the ground team leader and XO. Captain Anderson figured that with the new ship only just starting service, it would be some time until it saw real action, and he could ease Shepard into a more soldier-like work without cutting him off from the lab time he loved so much.

And now, Shepard was going to be a Spectre. Or, rather, was going to be offered a position as one. Anderson was almost certain that Shepard was refusing out of his well-known dislike for aliens, rather than any respect for the rules, but either way, this was going to be a problem, because technically, they _couldn't_ force him to accept.

But maybe he could be convinced. What about being a Spectre would appeal to Shepard? They weren't exactly jobs that could be worked in a lab, somewhere, but maybe something...

Anderson glanced at Shepard, who was waiting patiently, silently, with an air of someone waiting for an idiot to realize their mistake. Or perhaps that was just the vibe Anderson got from knowing him so long.

About the only positive side of being Spectre, from Shepard's perspective, would be being above the law. Anderson knew that there were things Shepard wanted to research, but could not. Some of the chemicals he ordered, the long times Shepard often spent in the lab without taking any notes for the Alliance, as he should, some of the suspicious wounds on batarians killed in action...

And it was then, that Anderson knew he could convince Shepard to become a Spectre. But did he want to?

Because there was one way to convince Shepard to accept front-line duty. One justification for which he would, indeed, _volunteer_ for such duty.

Killing batarians. Killing slavers.

It was rare, indeed, that Alliance ships were allowed to pursue batarian pirates into the Terminus, or into Hegemony space. Anderson had heard about Shepard barely skating by in a court marshall for insubordination, when he followed and captured a slaver ship, and was forced to kill all batarians within, or so he said. Shepard, after all, hailed from the colony of Mindoir, and was one of the only ones left after the horrific slaver raid years ago.

But did Anderson want to encourage that sort of behavior? He knew, firsthand, just how viscous a bloodthirsty Spectre could get. Saren had killed hundreds during Anderson's Spectre trial mission, and he hadn't even had a particular grievance with them. How many more would Shepard kill, when he was hunting for people to kill, deliberately?

In the end, Anderson knew he had to risk it. Shepard had calmed down considerably in the few months he had spent in Anderson's command, and perhaps he was not as high-strung as he was once.

He hoped.

* * *

In the end, convincing Shepard to accept his position as Spectre ended up being easier than convincing him to accept aliens on the ship. The turian Citadel Secutiry officer, Garrus Vakarian, and the quarian pilgrim Tali Zorah, were both eager to assist in the hunt for Saren. The krogan mercenary was a tougher sell, though Udina dragged out the conversation long enough that Urdnot Wrex had admitted to being intrigued by Specialist Shepard, and agreed to tag along 'just for a while'.

But Shepard... Anderson hadn't heard so many security regs quoted since he first became an officer. First, Shepard was 'sadly' constrained by the rules not to allow them aboard an Alliance warship, since becoming a Spectre did not free him from the regulations of his other commitments. Anderson informed him that, as a Spectre, he would retain his Alliance clearance and an honorary rank, but, like all agents of the Council, he was technically no longer a member of the Alliance military.

Next, Shepard was concerned about the motives and allegiances of the aliens. Anderson had thanked his lucky stars that they had not had this conversation in front of those three, since they would almost certainly have left after hearing the litany of racist suspicions Shepard harbored against them. It had quickly become apparent that Shepard considered them little more than allies of convenience, and token aliens to help convince the Council in the hearing about Saren. Eventually, Anderson convinced Shepard of their good intentions, or, at least, to give them a chance.

And finally, Shepard had come out and admitted he didn't like them, and didn't want them on his ship. And as a Spectre, he didn't answer to anyone about that. Anderson had tried, for a few minutes, to convince Shepard to just let it go, but eventually had to reveal the truth: As a ship jointly-built by the Alliance and the turian Hierarchy, the Normandy was technically Udina's to assign. And Udina wasn't going to assign it to anyone who didn't make the Alliance look like cooperative, alien-friendly allies of the Citadel. And if Shepard didn't want to lose his Spectre status in his first few days, he could not afford to turn down a huge advantage like a stealth warship, especially as Udina would doubtlessly inform on him to the Council.

But all of that was behind him, now. As Captain Anderson watched the Normandy sail off into the darkness of space, he knew in his heart that Shepard would stop Saren.


	2. Tali'Zorah nar Rayya

AN: This is out way sooner than it might have been, since I was halfway done with this when I published chapter 1.

* * *

 **Tali'Zorah nar Rayya**

Chief Engineer Luddemann had been quite friendly, and obviously eager to see quarian mechanical expertise put to the test. After a quick rundown of engine specs and maintenance procedures, she had been assigned a workstation on the starboard side of the ship.

But not a few minutes later, Spectre Shepard stormed in, clad in full enviro-sealed armor, and interrogated her on what she had seen, heard, and done since entering the engine room. After a barrage of increasingly hostile questions, she was ordered out of the room and back to her quarters. As soon as the doors had closed behind her, she heard screaming and yelling. She hurried over into her room, and waited with bated breath to see what would become of her. Would she be just another statistic, another foolish quarian pilgrim whose reach exceeded her grasp, and who was never heard from again? A few minutes later, there was a short burst of gunfire, and Tali flinched in fear. Her immediate reaction was to take stock of available hiding places, but the room was barely even 2.5 by 2.5 meters, and leaving it would draw unwelcome attention to her, and would be direct disobedience of a Captain' orders, besides.

Tali realized that there was nothing to be done, and resigned herself to enduring whatever happened. After another minute or two, the shouting stopped, and she heard quick, even steps approach her quarters. She couldn't keep herself from trembling in fear.

The door opened to reveal the helmeted face of Spectre Shepard, with Urdnot Wrex and Garrus Vakarian standing behind him. "Come with me, quarian."

Although she had corrected the human Ambassador, a higher-ranking human, just the day before in regards to addressing her by name, she was far too shaken and intimidated to even consider it, now. She meekly followed behind Shepard and the other two, back into the engine room, which was crowded with several more people than before.

It was deathly quiet, and she gasped in horrified shock when she saw Chief Engineer Luddemann, dead on the floor. A pool of blood spread around his head, still dripping slowly from several small holes clustered around one eye. Tali didn't even want to think about what the back of his head looked liked, and turned away, trying to push down the dry heaves now beginning.

Shepard took a position towards the maintenance console, keeping them all in view, and began speaking as if there was nothing amiss. "It has come to my attention that your briefing on this ship was somewhat lacking." A sharp glare was directed at Lieutenant Kaiden Alenko. "This is a cutting-edge prototype ship of the Systems Alliance Navy, and as such all technology on board is classified. Although you three aliens are permitted aboard as passengers and as Spectre deputies, you do not have clearance to interact with or examine any of the advanced equipment on this ship. The advanced equipment includes, but is not limited to, the engine room and all of its contents, the communication arrays and their interfaces, and pretty much everything except the kitchen, bathrooms, and the doors, ladders and elevator between your quarters and the airlock out of the ship. Chief Engineer Luddemann defied my orders in this regard, which is treason, an offense punishable by death.

"As I have been informed," there was another glance at Alenko, "that you aliens were not made aware of this prohibition, only Luddemann was punished. This is now your official warning that any further breaches of security protocol will be punished with death. Do you understand?"

Tali nodded jerkily, then, unsure if that was sufficient, quickly followed up with, "Y-y-yes, Captain."

She glanced over at the other two, seeing the krogan also nodding, but the turian, Garrus, bristled, and stepped forward. "Commander, even as a C-Sec agent, I know that human law-"

Shepard's hand snapped to his sidearm, and everyone in the room visible tensed. Garrus jerked his hand halfway to his side, before apparently realizing that he was unarmed, and Tali leaped backwards, knocking into the wall and falling awkwardly onto her side. The other humans in the room gasped or stepped away. Wrex, unlike all others in the room, appeared unphased.

"That's Spectre to you, turian. And I assume your vast C-Sec experience can tell you what that means."

Garrus held up his hands in a placating manner, and slowly stepped back a few paces, nervous, but uncowed. "Of course, Comman-, I mean, Spectre."

Shepard glared menacingly at everyone in the room, his eyes specks of hardened steel behind the harsh glare of his faceplate. Tali froze, still collapsed on the floor, wanted to get to her feet in case she had to run, but too terrified to move for fear of drawing his attention back to her... the quarian that had gotten a man killed on her first day on the ship.

"As a Council Spectre, I don't have to wade through the bureaucracy to punish someone for an obvious crime. I am taking this opportunity to impress upon you all the seriousness of this situation, which I thought should have been obvious, given the stakes of our mission."

Shepard paced back and forth a few feet. "We are on a mission to stop a crazy alien from blowing up human colonies, and I won't let anyone screw this up. While are on the topic of screwing up," he turned to face Wrex, "Kaiden should have mentioned, but I apparently must re-iterate, that you must disable all wireless functionality of your equipment, so that it does not give us away from stealth. This involves more than just turning off the wifi, and I will be extremely charitable and assume, krogan, that the signals I have triangulated as coming from your device are due to ignorance, rather than ill intent. If you have any trouble in turning it off, I assume the quarian can help you disable it, or you can ask Gunnery Sergeant Williams to destroy it for you." Shepard gestured at a woman in white and pink armor.

"Are there any questions?"

Tali thought, wildly, that she should beg to be dropped off at the next stop. Surely anywhere would be better than here. Important mission or not, she would never have asked to join if she had known Shepard was like this.

Back in the alley, when it seemed like she would finally be killed by Saren's minions, Shepard and his two crewmates had swooped in like avenging ancestors and rescued her from danger. He had come back to her hiding place behind a crate, the soft white light from the far door giving him an angelic silhouette as he reached out a hand to help her up and asked her if she was hurt. She had barely avoided swooning light a moonstruck fangirl, and had berated herself later for her stilted reply, something about Saren, she couldn't even remember now.

It was clear that he had acted exactly as he thought he must, to get what he wanted from her. She was an asset, and he had acted as such. But if she asked to leave... she would no longer be an asset. She would be a liability, and possible breach in security... She pointedly avoided looking at the corpse of Chief Engineer Luddemann.

"In that case, quarian!"

Tali flinched, and shrank away, leaning against the nearby wall.

"Don't just lay there. Pick up the body and follow me."

She quickly jerked herself to her feet, then almost overbalanced and fell over again. Glancing warily at Shepard, who was waving off an unspoken objection from Lieutenant Alenko. She slowly moved toward the body. She wanted to step around the pool of blood, but that would mean going around to Shepard's side, and turning her back to him to pick up-

In her inattention, and still trembling with fear, she stepped in part of the blood and slipped, falling onto the body. Suddenly face to face with a dead man, she shrieked, and pushed away, inadvertently rolling through the blood and away from the body again.

There was a slow chuckle from over her, and she looked up into the grim smirk of Spectre Shepard. If only a black hole would open here, right now, and erase her from existence.

The Lieutenant stepped forward with impatience, extending a glowing blue hand toward the body. "Sir, that's enough! You are out of control! I can take care of this. Can't you see that she's-"

Shepard made a slashing motion with his hand. "No, Lieutenant. This is her responsibility, and so she will take care of it." Shepard ignored the lieutenant's angry glare and looked down at where she still lay, shaking and covered in someone else's blood. "Remember, alien, that you have to think about the consequences of your actions. One would think that as a quarian, you would all have learned that by now, given the geth... but apparently not."

* * *

In the end, she was more terrified of what might happen if she asked to leave than she was scared of what might happen to her if she stayed. And so the several days of travel to the Artemis Tau cluster had passed in agonizing slowness. She didn't dare to leave her quarters, except to exchange her used waste packs for new ones, and she hoarded her nutrition tubes in her quarters so she wouldn't have to leave to get more.

The few times she walked the ship, she could feel the glares of the crew. The Lieutenant, Kaiden Alenko, had cornered her for an awkward apology about the Captain, but it had been clear despite assurances he would try and help, that he had no real power to do anything about the situation.

And now, as she waited with the others in the briefing room for their first mission, she couldn't help but dread what was to come. This whole trip had been one long nightmare so far, and they hadn't even left the ship yet. Tali felt so distracted that she couldn't even focus on what a waste of space a briefing room was.

Shepard entered the meeting room at a quick pace, his full-face helmet dimly reflecting the overhead lights. His head moved jerkily to focus on each other person in the room. Gunnery Sergeant Ashley something, Lieutenant Kaiden Alenko, a human male that Tali did not remember seeing before, Urdnot Wrex, Garrus Vakarian, and finally, herself. Tali shivered unpleasantly under his gaze.

"We will be descending to the surface of the planet Edolus to investigate an Alliance distress signal discovered while scanning for prothean ruins. Scan did not reveal the presence of any hostiles, nor that of any Alliance marines, so this is likely a trap. Assemble in full battle gear in the cargo hold in 5 minutes. Aliens, your weapons will be returned to you at that time for for possible use on this mission. All of you may re-enable your radios and wireless devices at that time, for the duration of the expedition. Questions?"

Garrus tilted his head sideways in apparent imitation of the human body language for questions, "Um, a trap?"

"Scans show no lifeforms or energy signatures anywhere near the distress beacon. Furthermore, the beacon is placed in the center of a relatively smooth plain of soft soil situated between rocky outcroppings."

Garrus looked as lost as Tali felt.

"Guess you can't learn everything in C-Sec, turian. Anyone else know what this means?" Shepard glanced around in seeming amusement. Tali felt herself relax a little at the slightly playful tone. "No one? Come on, marines, you should know this. And aliens, I know why the space gypsy might not know this, but surely you, krogan? You have these on your home planet, after all."

Wrex's eyes narrowed, though Tali couldn't tell if it was from irritation at Shepard's condescension, or realization of what that meant. "A thresher nest."

Shepard's head snapped over to the humans in the room. "Well how about that? A random alien from the Citadel outsmarts three Alliance marines who are supposed to have had specific training on how to avoid thresher maws."

The humans shifted in apparent discomfort, but this was driven out of Tali's mind when Wrex suddenly sprang to his feet with surprising speed, taking two quick steps to glare into Shepard's helmet from less than a foot away. "Alright, Spectre, I've had enough of your shit. I offered to help go after Saren because I thought it might be interesting, but I'll be damned if I let you insult me the whole time. You want me to keep to myself in a corner of the cargo bay? Fine. You don't want to sync up our tactics before a possible engagement? Fine, your funeral. But if you are going to act like being krogan makes me less than you, then maybe you don't deserve my help."

Tali shrank back into her seat, praying that she wasn't about to see someone die right in front of her. Bad enough that she had to see those thugs back on the Citadel get killed, and to have seen the Chief Engineer's body in the engine room, but those were just gunshots. Krogan were rumored to rip people limb from limb, and Wrex was huge, even for a krogan, not to mention that standing up next to Shepard made him seem even larger. And who hadn't heard about the fearsome krogan blood rages? What if he lost it, right here in the room with her? Would she live? Would any of them live? She saw Ashley standing on the far side of the confrontation, pistol raised, Kaiden was holding up his hands in a placating manner, though the slight blue glow of his body made it obvious he was ready for anything. Garrus was gripping his chair tightly, mandibles held rigidly against his skull.

Shepard had put a foot back and had his omnitool activated, but looked otherwise unperturbed. Tali wasn't sure if it was real bravery in the face of the enormous krogan, or if Shepard was really so caught up in his own racist fantasies that he couldn't imagine a mere alien being able to hurt him. Regardless, his voice was as calm and even as it was during the short briefing. "If you don't want to participate in our mission, feel free to stay in your quarters. We can let you off at our next port."

Wrex was not appeased. "We can let you off at our next port..." He trailed off with a growl, obviously expecting a corrected form of address.

But Shepard was either oblivious or uncaring. "Correct, _krogan_."

For a brief moment, Tali thought she was going to die. Wrex swelled up in indignation, but then let it out in a long, loud belly laugh, rocking back a step from the spectre.

"You've got a quad, Shepard. I suppose I'll soon see if your confidence is borne of skill, or of madness, but for now," he grinned with a crooked smile, "I might be beginning to like you."

And with that, Wrex walked out of the room, presumably moving toward the elevator.

Tali was stunned at the sudden turn of events, and her heart was still racing from the adrenaline. How could she be of any use on the mission if the briefing almost made her panic?

When Garrus got up a few moments later to follow Wrex, she practically leaped out of her seat to follow him. As the door closed behind her, she heard the lieutenant start speaking in a raised voice. "Shepard! Are you trying to-"

* * *

Tali wondered what it said about her, that facing down a thresher maw was less nerve-wracking than the briefing beforehand. Ancestors knew she was still scared, but it was a rational, almost calm, fear. The Mako was keeping an optimal distance from the thresher maw, far enough away to avoid the teeth, claws, and sonic emanations, but close enough to keep it from burrowing to close the distance. At least, that was what the Captain had said on their short drive here from the landing site.

She magnetized her boots and stuck to the outside of the Mako, quickly making temporary omni-gel patches for the holes melted through the tank's hull, even as the Mako continued to drive frenzied circles around the edge of the nest.

She would not have even considered such a dangerous course of action if she were part of a Migrant Fleet squad, but when Shepard had ordered her to begin repairs immediately, and pointed at the door, she hadn't even had the courage to face his glare before she found herself reaching for the handle.

She paused her work for a brief moment as the Mako's jets activated, leaping over another spray of acid. If she applied too much pressure to the setting gel, it would break, and she'd have to start all over. When the Mako landed heavily, she took a breath and then finished sealing the third, and largest, hole. She ignored the near-constant drone of the Mako's guns, other than accounting for the vibration in her repairs.

Sudden deceleration forced her torso to move awkwardly forward into a faceplanting squat, since her feet were still stuck flat on the hull. She heard a wet splash from quite close ahead, and realized they had just barely dodged another burst of acid.

Quiet sizzling caught her attention, and she cursed internally. Of course the splash would also catch the Mako. She quickly demagnetized one boot to take a step toward the front of the Mako, when she suddenly felt a strange warmth on her neck and back.

 _Strange, she thought, the sun on this planet was mostly obscured by dust and clouds. What could-_

Her back was fire; sizzling, dripping fire. Tali shrieked in agony as every muscle in her body tensed and her vision blurred. She flailed her arms and legs around in a panic. Distantly, she fell several lesser pains, but they were nothing compared to her neck and back. Sizzling, scraping, burning, Tali writhed and waved her hands around in the general area of the acid. Touching it only made the pain worse but she couldn't just leave it alone. She knew there was something to do, she had something that would help. What was it? In such pain, she couldn't remember what or where it was.

As her vision finally began to darken and tunnel, she was mostly relieved. At least death couldn't hurt more than this...

* * *

"What an interesting opportunity. I have always wondered..."

* * *

Her neck felt sore, and as Tali awoke with a sneeze, she realized that she must have fallen asleep leaning against the wall again. Except... she wasn't. She was laying on her back, and the ceiling was far too high to be her quarters on the Normandy. She vaguely recognized the medical bay from the incredibly abbreviated tour of the ship.

She cleared her throat, feeling oddly hazy and congested, and her head felt oddly heavy. She glanced at the bottom left of her HUD, at the chronometer, and suddenly, it all came back to her. Edolus, the thresher maw, the pain... acid! She must have been splashed with the acid. Just as quickly, she realized that this meant her suit was compromised, for over three days, judging from the time she saw.

She quickly sat up, only to instantly regret it. Now that she was moving, she realized that her neck was the most sore, but she felt pain from all over, as well. Feeling behind her, she ran her hands over the back of her suit, trying to feel how damaged it was. But there was nothing but smooth armor and fabric wherever she felt.

She activated her omni-tool's camera app and awkwardly took a few pictures of her back, from below and from over the shoulder. But when she saw the pictures, the suit appeared intact, if somewhat discolored.

Tali ran through the specs of her suit in her head, trying to think if anything could have caused the acid to heat up enough to burn her through the suit, but not enough to damage the suit. Nothing came to mind.

She ran several diagnostic on the suit, but everything came up normal. It was only after the fourth run, scrolling through pages of debug info, that she happened to notice one particular bit out of place.

 _pwrp_cnt: 17_

She stared at the number, dumbfounded. Obviously, this meant her suit had been powered up 17 times since the last time nonvolatile memory was cleared. Except, she had powered it up once, when she originally got the suit, and once more when she had to refit it for basic armor before her pilgrimage. What had happened to make it power cycle 15 more times?

She was just beginning to panic when movement caught her eye, and she realized she was not alone in the room.

A silver-haired human female rose up from a chair on the other side of the room, and approached her bedside. "Tali! You're awake! Thank God, everyone was so worried. It's been almost a day since the surgery."

Tali felt dazed and confused. This person was familiar, though she didn't remember her name. She was part of the Normandy's crew, and Tali was still on the Normandy, she assumed. Was the first part of her voyage just a bad dream? She remembered everyone hating her, glaring at her; she remembered getting Chief Engineer Luddemann killed because her eagerness to see the shiny new ship had exceeded the man's caution. "I'm sorry, I don't... who are you?"

The woman smiled gently. "Of course, we only met once, and we haven't exactly had a chance to talk. I'm Doctor Karin Chakwas. How are you feeling? Oh-" Karin looked briefly troubled, and snatched up a datapad from a nearby desk. "Right, we should go ahead and make a report of your health. Um, I think Shepard had gotten a baseline diagnostic report from your suit during your initial screening, can you go ahead and output another one to my datapad here?"

Tali was briefly puzzled when she tried and failed to send it over, then noticed that her wireless omni-tool functionality was disabled. Someone must have turned it back off when they returned to the Normandy. The doctor handed her a short cord, and Tali plugged it in and copied it over with the wire.

"Hm... everything look fairly normal, which is really quite impressive, considering... well, your condition. You've lost a couple pounds, which is probably just flesh and muscle from the damaged area. Shepard said that was to be expected, it will take a few days before the rapid regeneration returns it to full functionality."

Tali was again thrown for a loop. "Wait, Shepard?"

Karin nodded seriously. "Yes, you remember that it was he that gave you your initial screening? He's the resident expert on alien physiologies on this ship. I used to think that he had just been milking the military scholarship program for all it was worth, spending over a decade taking university courses on the taxpayers dime, but maybe they knew what they were doing. I'm not sure I could saved even a human that had been injured like you were." She shook her head, making her silver hair simmer a bit in the harsh, fluorescent light. "So yes, he was the one who performed your surgery. Took nearly 30 hours. I was here to assist for some parts, but Shepard is pretty strict about who he allows in his surgical theater, so I was only here for about 8 hours of it."

Tali's mind boggled at the length of the surgery. She had been sure that Shepard hated her, and would have left her to die in a heartbeat, but instead he had spent over a full standard day ensuring that she survived. Despite her earlier experiences, Tali felt a brief hope that maybe her first impression of Shepard hadn't been so wrong, after all. Other than... Tali shook her head to clear her thoughts of the engine room.

In the meantime, Karin plugged the datapad into a jack on the wall, and fiddled around with the controls. "Aaaaand there, report sent. Now, I realize that they suit diagnostic is pretty thorough, but is there anything else I should know? Are you still sore? I would think so, though Shepard seemed to think it would be minimal."

Tali was quiet for a few moments. Karin seemed so earnest and so kind... "Doctor, do you... Does the crew hate me?"

Karin pursed her lips, and expression that Tali had read to meaning frustration or anxiety. "No, Tali. They- we don't hate you. It's just that you came at a bad time. Captain Anderson was the officer in charge of this ship before this mission, so Shepard took charge at the same time you came aboard. I don't think if you were aware, but most human ships aren't nearly so strict about security. So it was a sudden increase in the level of security expected on this ship when Shepard took over, and I think the crew blamed the aliens- I mean, you and the others, for part of that, since everyone knows Shepard is, um, suspicious of aliens. And then when Luddemann died... I think everyone was just frustrated, and they didn't dare take it out on Shepard."

Tali noticed that the doctor avoided mentioning that Shepard had killed him, and wondered what that might mean.

"But I wouldn't worry too much about that now, Tali. Everyone knows that you three handled yourselves quite well on the mission, and that you were injured repairing the Mako in the middle of battle! Really, if you were a human, I would say that you were a typical marine, thinking yourself invincible and pulling crazy stunts like that." Doctor Chakwas smiled broadly.

"So now, really, Tali, any soreness? Shepard left a small amount of painkillers for you before he left."

Tali nodded and extended a hand for the pills. "Yeah, I feel sore all over, especially my neck, and I think I am running a fever. I'm probably having a reaction to the suit puncture. Did Shepard- I mean, of course, if he know about quarians he would have known about our immune systems. I just meant that since we were on a human ship, he might not have had the facilities for a proper clean room. I should probably take some antibiotics. Do you have any in stock here? I wouldn't want to deplete my in-suit stores in case I need them at some other time."

Doctor Chakwas grinned at her and leaned against the next bed over. "Slow down, girl. You're making _me_ feel out of breath."

"Sorry, it's just that when I get nervous, I tend to babble, and it's just this whole situation with the thresher maw and Saren and with..." She glanced down, in the direction of the engine room.

The doctor's face turned sad and serious. "I understand, Tali. In the meantime, yes, we do have some antibiotics. Shepard said that he had replaced your current stock with some more effective version- I didn't understand all the details- and he left them in several modular replacements for your in-suit stores, so you don't need to unseal your suit to use them. I think he said that he also replaced the ones already in your suit?"

Tali pulled up her omni-tool again and scrolled through the settings menu. Sure enough, in the emergency first aid section there was a long string of gibberish, probably a hash, in place of the brand name and version information of her store-bought antibiotics. "Wow, I didn't think anyone would even know how to look for the access port, let alone have replacements. What's with the version info?"

"Shepard is quite the chemist and biologist. He probably made it himself. Don't worry," she held up a hand to forestall Tali's obvious surprised objection, "it's perfectly safe. Shepard is a regular genius when it comes to this sort of thing. Makes him a tremendous doctor..." she trailed off with a sly, secretive grin, "but a terrible patient!"

Tali couldn't help but laugh along with Doctor Chakwas, her spirits lifting. Maybe this trip wouldn't be a disaster after all.

* * *

Another day and a half went by, searching the rest of the Knossos system for any Prothean ruins. As I found out from Lieutenant Kaiden Alenko, the Council had evidently given Captain Shepard reason to believe that the daughter of Saren's apparent ally, Benezia T'Soni, was on a research dig at a Prothean site in the Artemis Tau Cluster. However, even though Council law required the disclosure of new Prothean ruins and major artifacts, reports of such were notoriously vague, to ensure that the finders got whatever they could out of the ruins before the scavengers and Hanar could arrive.

But this didn't make much sense to her.

"Why would the Council require reports like that if you don't have to say exactly where you found them? I thought the point was to make sure that no one hoarded the Prothean artifacts?"

"Yeah," Kaiden sighed softly, leaning against the wall of her quarters, "But that's how it goes. Technically, they have reported the location. Of course, the location isn't specific enough, so the Bureau of Prothean Artifacts will reject their application and request clarification. They have 10 standard days to re-file with the corrected location. But there's no penalty for doing that repeatedly, and they are allowed to excavate the ruins as long as they have an application pending, so…" He shrugged.

"But they're abusing the system! Why doesn't the bureau do something about that? Shouldn't the law be stricter?"

Kaiden just shook his head. "No, you can't make it too strict, or well-meaning people will get caught in it, too. And they have to let people investigate the ruins during the application period, because the approved applications become public records, and as soon as that happens, all of the normal scientists, historians, Prothean-worshippers and the like will show up, and the larger archaeological organizations will show up. And as soon as that happens, the original discoverers won't have any advantage over the others. If they had to wait until the application was approved, then hardly anyone would report finds at all."

That seemed overly lenient to Tali, but then, most governments were not as strict as the Migrant Fleet.

"Anyway, it was good talking with you, Tali. I should probably get back to work. Got an access panel by the mess that keeps having some sort of display issue, and it's acting up again."

Tali wanted to offer her assistance, but was extremely wary of ending up on the wrong side of the Captain. But she knew the one Kaiden was talking about, and it was in a public area, so maybe... "Well, um, if you asked Captain Shepard, maybe I could help? If it's not classified, or anything, I mean."

Kaiden smiled pleasantly at her. "Thanks, but it's not really that difficult, just annoying."

"I mean, it just that I don't have anything to do on the ship. On a quarian ship, everyone is expected to contribute, all the time. We can't afford to have anyone sitting around doing nothing. I was always kind of jealous of other races that had so much free time. But now that I'm here, and not allowed to do much of anything, I'm not sure I feel that jealous any more."

Kaiden gave her a searching gaze. "Well, I don't think it's anything classified, but let me ask the Commander."

He walked over to Ashley's bench and plugged his omni-tool into the network port. As she watched Kaiden talk (and, if she was judging his body language accurately, argue) with Captain Shepard, Tali found herself wondering at how differently everyone treated her since the mission on Edolus. Kaiden had stopped by several times to talk with her, and she had spoken briefly with a few curious crewmen up near the mess when she had gone to retrieve a few extra tubes of nutrient paste. Everyone still stared, of course, but it was no longer a hostile glare, but a curious look. Even the woman in the pink armor, Ashley, had said a few words to her when Tali had gone over to make sure her weapons had been recovered. Tali had been pretty sure that Ashley didn't like her, before, but maybe that had all been in her imagination.

But based on how long it was taking Kaiden to argue with Shepard about fixing the access port, it appeared that the Captain hadn't changed. Or maybe he just truly took security that seriously. It was hard to tell, since she hadn't seen him at all after the surgery. According to Doctor Chakwas, he was locked in his lab, which had been moved into the Captain's quarters of the ship, and had been there since almost immediately after finishing her surgery. The doctor claimed that this was pretty normal for Shepard, but Tali still felt like perhaps he was avoiding her.

At last, Kaiden returned to her doorway. "It took some negotiating, but Shepard said you could work on it, if you want. I just need to disconnect it from the network, and supervise your work."

Tali sighed. "What if the problem is related to the network?"

"Then at least we'll have narrowed it down to that, and I can work on it from there. That would be more info than I had before, at least. Every time I try to fix it, it seems like it's a different thing that fixes it, but I can never tell how they're connected. Anyway, come on." He gestured toward the elevator.

Tali gave a nod to Garrus and Wrex as they passed the other two modular living quarters. They looked to be as bored as she had been. She had talked with Garrus quite a bit, yesterday, but she still felt too intimidated by Wrex to approach him.

After an excessively long elevator ride, Kaiden escorted her over to the panel itself, where the problem was evident. The display flickered constantly. Kaiden quickly disconnected the two network cables, then motioned for her to go ahead.

Tali dove in with abandon. She almost wanted to pace herself, and spend extra time analyzing the panel, just to have something to do, but she realized Kaiden, now seated behind her, would be waiting on her. She first looked for and found the power access port, and checked the connection. Solid, so it wasn't a faulty power connection. Good. She had a tentatively high opinion of Kaiden's skill with technology from their talks, and would have hated to think he had overlooked such a thing.

"So, what have you tried so far, Lieutenant Alenko?" she asked as she studied the circuitry, which seemed pretty straightforward. Probably not a hardware problem.

"Like I said, I've tried all sorts of things, but it was never the same thing. I'm not sure I could tell you anything helpful, and maybe it would be better if you came in without any preconceptions from my fumbling around."

Tali turned to look at him as she finished copying the panel's software onto her omnitool. As she thought, a generic panel like this used a commercial software. She tried to ping out to the extranet to see if it was the latest version, only to recall that her wireless was disabled. Frowning, she tried to recall if she had ever seen this particular software.

After a few moments of thinking, she gave that up as a lost cause. Maybe she could still do some brute force debugging, watch the arguments passed and memory written and see if she noticed anything suspicious. She set the output to stream to several files on her omnitool.

And almost immediately, she saw two problems. Some memory changed in sync with every flicker of the display, and, probably more importantly, the software she had just downloaded from the panel didn't match what the panel had now. As she dialed in to the specific area, she saw the same slow flicker of a few bytes, back and forth.

 _01000100_

 _00000000_

 _01000100_

 _00000000_

 _Aha!_ Tali turned the display off and back on, watching the data loaded into memory. _01000100_ was the correct value, but memory flickered to _00000000,_ back, and then stayed correct.. Bad memory stick? She turned the display back off, connected her omnitool to the memory directly, running a quick diagnostic.

But the diagnostic returned no errors. _Confusing_.

Kaiden peered over her shoulder. "Hey, you had it for a second. Try turning it back on."

"No, I think that was a fluke," Tali shook her head. "I think the memory might be bad. The software loaded into memory wasn't staying the same." She booted the display back on, regardless, though. It came on, and stayed on. She glared at it suspiciously, and checked her display. No problems, now. _01000100_ stayed in memory, exactly as it should.

Kaiden sat back on the seat along the wall. "Well, at least it's fixed for now. Thanks, Tali. I'll let Shepard know-"

"Ah! Kaiden, doesn't this happen with some regularity?" Tali loaded up a small heating element program on her omnitool, and placed it next to the memory stick.

"Well, it happens every so often, but not- Oh, there it goes again…"

Tali grinned tentatively as she switched to a coolant program, looking up at the flicker display. After a few moments, the flickering stopped.

Kaiden glanced down at her, and Tali smiled triumphantly. "Found it. Here, watch. Flickering on… and off… and on… and off…" She toggled the heating and cooling to reproduce the problem.

"Well, that's great! What is it?"

Tali clambered to her feet, brushing a bit of dust off her thighs. "Looks like a memory stick as starting to go bad, but it only happens when it gets hot enough. I bet when you try to fix it, you end up restarting it several times, and leave it off for a while, and that eventually lets it cool enough to work for a while. It probably just needs replacing. I recognize the brand, it's pretty cheap. I assume a warship would have spare parts lying around, we can go ahead and replace it now if you want."

Kaiden's eyebrows moved up his forehead in surprise. "How did you even _find_ that?"

"Oh, you know, I was looking at the memory for things…"

Kaiden just gave her a blank stare. "And you just… know what to look for? In a long list of tens of thousands of ones and zeroes? And it wasn't even the program's memory, it was the programs itself."

Tali moved over to his left to come somewhat alongside him, and showed him the output stream she had on her omnitool. "No, see, I was just looking at the memory for suspicious activity, and I happened to notice this part changing while everything around it didn't-"

She stopped when Kaiden began laughing. "Man, what a find! You don't even have the source code of the access panel, do you? And you _still_ found it. What the- wow, they say that quarians are good with tech, but _damn_ , they weren't kidding!"

Kaiden suddenly twisted and popped a quick salute, and Tali filled with pride. She'd found the answer to a problem that an onboard tech hadn't been able to solve. She was finally in a position to prove her usefulness, and _without_ getting melted with acid, this time!

"I see the quarian solved your problem, Lieutenant."

Tali's insides squirmed uncomfortably at the unexpected voice, and she realized that Captain Shepard must have just walked out of his quarters right behind her. She quickly spun around and stepped away, trying imitate Kaiden's salute.

The Captain smirked at her from behind his faceplate. "At ease, Lieutenant, quarian." He turned to face Kaiden, glancing briefly back at her before continuing. "Outsourcing your own work, Kaiden? I see your _hypothetical situation_ wasn't just idle curiousity."

Kaiden looked calm, but Tali was starting to feel nervous, again. Kaiden had said that the Captain approved of her assistance, right? He didn't seem nearly so angry as he had in the engine room, anyway. She hoped.

"Well, sir, it just so happened that this situation popped up immediately after our discussion, and so-"

"Cut it out, Lieutenant. You can be coy if you want, but _never_ _lie_ to _me_." Shepard's voice was ice cold, almost malicious.

"Sorry, sir. No, my question was not just idle curiousity, sir."

Tali marvelled at Kaiden's calm demeanor, though she wondered if that might be easier for biotics, who could just squish people with their minds. Kaiden didn't seem like one to do that lightly, but at this range he would definitely have an advantage against a non-biotic, like the Captain.

She took a deep breath to calm herself. Everything was going to be fine. Shepard wasn't yelling, and he hadn't moved for his gun. The engine room was a one time thing.

The Captain just stared at Kaiden for a long time. He rocked back onto one leg, and brought one arm up to rub at his neck, still utterly silent.

Just when Tali thought that the Captain must be ignoring them to read something on his HUD, to be silent this long, he spoke again, his voice quiet, but derisive. "Already working to bend the situation in favor of the aliens, are you? You must think you're very clever. _Oh, if I just trick Shepard into giving them a chance, he'll have to accept them._ " Shepard stepped in close, well within was would be considered personal space, even for a quarian. "You alien lovers are all the same. So eager to treat them like _people_ that you forget yourself.

"If we had human civilians on this ship to assist in the mission," he talked over Kaiden's attempt to speak up, "You wouldn't dare get them to do your job for you, would you? Do you think it's different for aliens? Do you?"

Tali was starting to feel scared now, and slowly backed up until her legs his the seats by the wall. _Keelah, and I thought I had finally made a good impression_.

"Well, you're right, Lieutenant."

Tali almost at down out of sheer surprise, but Kaiden looked like he was bracing himself, and it quickly became apparent why.

"IT'S WORSE! These things aren't military, they aren't Alliance personnel, they're not even citizens, and most importantly, they're _not even human_." Shepard backed off and began pacing a very short path in the hallway. Tali was reminded of old holovids of predatory animals stalking their prey. What Shepard lacked of the grace of those predators, he more than made up for with the intimidation factor of his full armor. "If you want to suck up to them in your free time, that's your problem. But you had better believe I'll be watching you, Systems Alliance Lieutenant Kaiden Alenko. If I even _suspect_ your loyalties, you won't like what happens."

Shepard stormed past them, physically knocking her sprawling into the seats. "Maybe give it those Prothean data discs we found in the asteroid, instead of any more Alliance tech, if you just can't help yourself, Lieutenant." And then he was gone, turning the corner to the upper deck.

Tali, righted herself in her seat, feeling tears prick at her eyes. _Why couldn't anything go right?_

Kaiden sat down next to her, sighing heavily. Tali sniffed a bit, trying to stop her tears. It worked, a bit.

After a few moment of silence, he spoke. "I'm sorry you had to hear that, Tali."

"At least I know, now. Better than thinking I was better off than I really am, I guess. I mean, I knew, going on on my pilgrimage, that there would be people who didn't like quarians. I just. I mean… when we first met, he seemed so much… nicer."

Kaiden nodded in understanding, and turned to face her a little more fully. "Yeah. Shepard is pretty rude most of the time, but he can behave when he wants, or when it will get him something he wants.

"Back on the Citadel, you had something he wanted: the evidence, and your cooperation with the testimony. He didn't say much to me about it, but I am pretty sure he was also trying to look good to the Council, to make them take him seriously. They could hardly call it a human smear campaign when he showed up with a quarian, a turian, and a krogan.

"And for what it's worth, Tali, the rest of us appreciate what you've done for us. Really," He emphasized. He must have seen her head drooping after that last bit. "Shepard is… a special case, for us. I don't know what you've heard about his past, but it might be worth looking into, if you want to understand him at all."

"I could, but I don't know if it will help much. I'd still be an _alien_." She bit out the last word spitefully. "I guess maybe it's different than being despised specifically for being a quarian, like everywhere else, but not by much. Anyway, Lieutenant, I'm sorry for getting you in trouble, I-"

"No, no, no, don't worry about it. And please, call me Kaiden. And I'm not really in trouble. I didn't break any regulations, and I had even specifically asked about this particular situation. Shepard was probably just upset that I actually had such a job lined up. And really, he might have looked pretty mad to you, but this was tame, for Shepard.

"He might have claimed to know what I was doing, making you useful, but he didn't go so far as forbidding more such tasks in the future. And he even mentioned the Prothean data discs, specifically. So even if he doesn't realize it yet, he's already considering your uses."

"Great, I get an upgrade from alien trash to tool." Tali was surprised by the bitterness in her own tone, and she hurried to make sure Kaiden didn't think her ungrateful. "I mean, I really appreciate what you're trying to do here, Lieutenant. I mean, Kaiden. I just had hoped for more, on my pilgrimage."

"Don't feel too bad, Tali. Shepard isn't what you would call a nice guy, but if you can make yourself useful to him, he's the best, uh, ally, you can have." Tali had a feeling that Kaiden had been about to say 'friend'. "He's never one for social niceties, but once you show that you can contribute to the team, he'll come around. A bit."

Kaiden seemed to see that she was still feeling down, so he continued a little further. "You might not see the benefit, yet, but I can assure you that Shepard will work with you as long as he thinks you're on the same team. I don't think I've mentioned it, but if you didn't know, Shepard and I have worked together before. I used to be on a patrol ship, the _Riley_. We did a few runs out near batarian space, just after Torfan. You know about Torfan, yeah?"

Tali shook her head, and Kaiden looked at her thoughtfully. "Well, you can learn about when looking up Shepard history, once we get back to a port with extranet access. Anyway, we were clearing the area of any remaining pirates, not that there were many. I didn't like Shepard, at the time, but he was my commanding officer, so I followed orders, and, as a biotic, and I very useful in close quarters, like in boarding actions. I guess I caught his attention, because he offered to upgrade my biotic amp.

"Now, normally, I would have just left it alone. I was an L2 at the time. If you don't know much about that, then the summary is that L2 implants were quite effective, but with sometimes hideous side effects. I had frequent, debilitating migraines. After a mission I had to sit out because of one, Shepard came around, and offered to fix mine up. At that point, I had just been resolved to tough it out forever, because although it was bad, it could easily have been much worse, and could easily be made much worse with the slightest mistake.

"But Shepard is pretty much a medical genius, and everyone knows it, especially after Elysium. So I figured I would let him take a crack at it. And he fixed it, perfectly, mostly. I can still kind of tell when I _would_ have gotten a migraine, the amp feels a little different, but other than that, it's almost like not having one at all.

"Anyway, my point in telling you all of this, is that even at the time he made that offer, he was still not very polite to me. In fact, he pretty much acted like you just saw. But he shows how he values people in what he _does_ , not, in what he says, so don't let him get you down. You just keep being amazing," he gestured at the newly-fixed access panel, "and he'll come around."

After such a long-winded story, Tali wasn't sure what to think. But maybe, just maybe, she could make herself a place here, too. If she could prove herself useful. Starting with…

"So, Kaiden, where are those Prothean data discs?"


	3. Garrus Vakarian

Garrus Vakarian

Garrus was now confident that he had made the correct decision, to assist the new human Spectre in his mission to stop Saren. Even as they searched for the traitor's daughter in the Artemis Tau cluster, they were stopping to solve problems as they found them.

Dead marines? _Investigated_.

Crashed satellites and probes? _Salvaged_.

Pirates? Even now, they were approaching in the Mako to take out the small, pre-fab facility they had detected while in orbit around Sharjila.

Garrus glanced around at the others in the Mako. Shepard, Williams, Jenkins, Alenko, Urdnot, Zorah, and himself. He had been a little unsure of the quarian, but she had more than proven her bravery on the first mission, and again now, with her willingness to get back into action a few short days after what had looked like quite a serious injury.

After several minutes of driving, Williams adjusted herself in her seat, changing the angle of the turret's periscope. "Sir, facility in sight."

Without prompting, Alenko steered the Mako into a small depression and slowed to a stop even as Shepard brought up a small datapad with scans from the Mako's radar, and an inset showing the turret's view of the facility. Garrus was quite impressed with how efficiently Alenko and Shepard worked together. Like they always knew what the other was doing.

"Alright crew, aliens, listen closely. Normally we would approach on foot, so as to avoid their ship's sensors. With the pressure of Sharjila's atmosphere, approach on foot is basically impossible, which may have been a strategic consideration for this group of pirates. The obvious counter to this would be to approach swiftly in the Mako or another vehicle, and so we must assume they considered this and have mined the obvious approaches to the facility."

If it weren't for his incredible ability to overthink everything, Garrus would have thought Shepard the ideal Spectre. Well, that, and the execution of the engineer back on the Normandy, but maybe Shepard had known something more than he had explained to them, at the time.

"That is why we will be approaching over the rocky outcropping near their ship, which is unlikely to be monitored due to its steepness, and which will shield us from any sensors until we are very close," he gestured toward the topographical map. "Scans show that the ship is powered down, but we can't assume that their scanners are offline, and we can't afford for them to destroy the Mako while we take out the facility. Therefore, our first priority is to commandeer the ship."

Garrus shook his head. "Spectre, if we do that, chances are high that they'll become aware of our presence before we can enter the facility. They might lock us out or prepare an ambush. A luxury asari frigate like this takes a few minutes to power up, we could probably-"

"If I wanted your opinion, turian, I would have written it down for you to read back to me."

Garrus gaped, mandibles dropped, but Shepard continued on as if nothing was amiss.

"We will hop the Mako on top of the ship for magnetic clamping, which will avoid any mines and also keep the Mako in position for mass effect drive interdiction in case the ship is manned. I will remain in the Mako for that purpose, while the rest of you disembark to board the ship. Use your magnetic clamps to scale down the side of the ship, if necessary. Lieutenant Alenko, you're in charge of forcing the door. The rest of you, guard him while he works. He can't afford any distractions, since Sharjila's pressure will make short work of your hardsuits within a few minutes. Once inside, neutralize any hostiles, tranquilize any slaves or captives they might have, and notify me when complete. Code phrase for success is 'Excavation complete'. Repeat it back to me."

Everyone duly repeated the phrase.

"Good. The code phrase for duress is 'Ship clear'. Repeat it back to me."

Garrus barely suppressed a sigh at the overkill for such a simple mission. Operatives of their caliber, possibly excluding Tali, were hardly going to be overpowered taking a parked ship from some third-rate mercs.

"Good. If the ship starts before you report success, I will interdict. If you report duress, I will cause minor destabilization in the mass effect drive. This should sound alarms in most ship types, use that distraction to free yourselves and take control of the ship."

Garrus couldn't hold it in anymore. "Spectre, first, this is way over the top for a strategy against Terminus mercs. Secondly, mass effect drive interdiction is not a proven science, and the Mako is much to small-"

" _Turian_ , _be silent_. Mines may be uncommon, but this makes them _uncommonly effective_ if you don't prepare for them. Secondly, I have interdicted before, so I'll thank you to _shut your mouth_ about things you obviously don't understand!" Shepard took a few deep breaths, visibly calming himself down. "Why do you think this Mako handles like a weather blimp? It has an oversized eezo core, which works fine for interdiction at close range, such as when magnetically clamped to the ship's exterior."

Shepard took a few moments to glance over the tactical map, idly rubbing his hands together. "Once the ship is secured I will move the Mako next to the exterior door, and the rest of you will rejoin me, except for Lieutenant Alenko, who will take over piloting of the captured ship. We will approach the facility entrance in the Mako. Gunnery Chief, you will be pilot. We will then attempt to enter. If this takes too long, or if resistance makes it too risky, return to the Mako. Alenko, if you see us get back in the Mako and back up, shoot a hole in the facility opposite the entrance, make it large enough to drive the Mako through. We will then enter the facility by that means. If we do so, we will use the Mako's weapons to clear the area immediately around the breach. Any of you aliens know how to operate a tank turret?"

Garrus jumped to volunteer, since he hadn't had the opportunity to man a tank since basic military training years ago. "I do, Spectre."

"Good. Remember not to blast anything too close with the main gun. Williams can just run over anyone in close range."

Garrus knew Shepard wouldn't care to hear that anyone with his training knew better than to use a tank's main turret at close range, so he let it slide.

"Once the immediate area is clear, I will set up a semi-permeable barrier using the Mako's core to re-pressurize the interior, and we will take the rest of the facility on foot."

Shepard let out a long sigh. "Aliens, this is the first real firefight you will have had with my squad. If you perform poorly, you will be dismissed after this mission. I will be directing the fight, and once we engage I expect all of my orders to be obeyed immediately and without question. If you think you have a better idea, I don't care, you do what I say.

"I don't know how well you have studied the Alliance training manuals I gave you, or if you aliens even bothered, so allow me to clarify just in case. If I say _duck,_ I mean crouch or kneel. If I say _down_ , I mean dive for the ground on your belly. If you only crouch when I say _down_ , you might get a grenade in the back for your trouble. If I say _right_ or _left_ , that means you turn to your right or left, respectively, and engage any enemy you find there. Same goes for _on your six_ to face your back. I don't care if there are other hostiles around you. If I say _back_ , that means move at least five feet in the direction we came from. If I tell you to _dodge_ , that means dive for cover in whatever direction I specify.

"Now, double-check your weapons, make sure all safeties are off. Check that your shields are on before we go into combat - I'm looking at you, Private - and fully charged."

Garrus took a moment to note the embarrassed look that Private Jenkins had, and wondered what the story was, there. A quick, and unnecessary, look at his weapons showed that all safeties were off, and his helmet's HUD showed his shields online and powered.

While the others continued to check their weapons, Garrus idly watched Shepard fiddle with his omnitool, obviously doing some sort of detailed check on his weapons and hardsuit. Perhaps they were new? But then, seeing the Spectre's overkill in preparation, perhap this was standard procedure for him.

Wrex had only given his equipment a once-over, and was obviously impatient to get the real action.

Tali, who had only a pistol and a shotgun, was busily doing some sort of work on her shield emitter. She seemed completely oblivious to his staring, her concentration only interrupted by the occasional cough or sniffle. Garrus was uncomfortably reminded that a single shot that pierced her shields could be the end of her.

The other humans checked their equipment with casual ease. Lieutenant Alenko was whispering something to Jenkins, but it wasn't loud enough for the translator to pick up.

And then they waited several minutes for Shepard to finish. The Spectre seemed not at all disturbed by the fact that everyone else had finished well before him. "Very well. Is anyone not prepared?"

A brief silence confirmed that all were ready. "What is the code phrase for successfully capturing the ship?"

There was a brief pause, before they all responded, "Excavation complete."

"What is the code phrase for duress?"

"Ship clear."

"Excellent. Lieutenant, _go_."

The Lieutenant punched the accelerator so hard that the straps of Garrus seat were all that kept him from flying into the back of the Mako. He vaguely heard Tali give a yelp that turned into a short coughing fit, but he was more concerned about the possibility of Wrex, who was seated beside him, breaking free from his straps and crushing him to death.

Fortunately, the straps held, even as Alenko continually accelerated up the relatively smooth side of the rocky outcropping, opposite the facility. The tank bounced and wobbled even despite the incredible shock absorption system. Just when Garrus had thought nothing would be worse than 'playing chicken' with a thresher maw, the human just _had_ to introduce him to a new level of nausea.

And then, suddenly, the jets fired, and the ride became smooth as glass. The Mako sailed across the gap, gradually slowing and descending until, with a final burst from the jets, it touched down atop the merc's ship with surprising gentleness.

Shepard quickly pressed a few buttons on his console, and they hard a loud _clunk_ that was doubtlessly the magnetic clamp. He waved them urgently toward the door, "Go, go, go!"

Private Jenkins was first out the door, looking forward and then right to check for enemies. Lieutenant Alenko did the same for the left while the rest of them piled out of the tank. With the speed of obvious practice, Alenko and Williams preceded them down the side of the ship, climbing down the several meters of hull before dropping to the ground. After a brief check of his surrounding, Alenko raced toward the airlock.

Meanwhile, Garrus was still trying to climb down the side of the ship. _Place foot, clamp foot, unclamp hand, move hand, clamp hand, unclamp other foot, move foot, clamp foot…_ Jenkins was making similar progress beside him.

He felt vaguely jealous of the krogan, who was heavy enough that he just slid down the side with one clamp. Spirits, even the girl, Tali, was making better progress than him! Though perhaps life in the Migrant Fleet afforded more opportunity to practice this sort of thing.

By the time he and Jenkins had reached the ground, the Lieutenant had already finished with the door. Knowing that anyone inside would surely have heard them, Wrex and Williams, who were wearing the heaviest armor, were in place to be the first ones in, and the rest of them would presumably follow in the next airlock cycle.

The krogan and the human female entered the airlock, which shut with a surprisingly loud _thud_. Perhaps the denser atmosphere was amplifying the sound. The rest of them waited in long silence, punctuated only by the slowly-rising pitch of their hard-suit environmental hazard alarms.

The instant the door opened, Garrus sprang forward, eager to engage any pirates. The others followed, Alenko, Tali, Jenkins, and Garrus slapped the airlock cycle panel. Then came the agonizingly slow wait for decontamination and air cycle process to finish. Alenko signalled him to take the right side once the doors opened, and then set up in obvious readiness to take the left.

The door opened, and Garrus surged forth, scanning right, his finger touching the trigger. Nothing. "Clear!"

Kaiden answered, "Clear!"

Garrus was about to ask how to divide the work, when the Lieutenant signalled them to move right, toward the nose of the ship. "Everyone, this way. Most frigate have controls near the front, and we need to take over the ship before we do anything else."

They moved forward in mostly-perfect military formation, minus Tali's nervous fidgeting. They passed one, then two interior doors, and found Wrex and Williams glancing over the ship controls.

The Gunnery Chief looked back. "Ship logs indicate no one aboard, sir."

Alenko just nodded. "Good work. I'll take over here, Chief. Do a quick sweep of the rest of the ship, then signal Shepard for the next stage."

"Lieutenant, there's no one on board." Williams sounded annoyed.

"Unless _you_ want to read the riot act by the Specialist, I mean, Spectre, you will need to do a sweep. Is it overkill? Probably. Is it a waste of time? Maybe. Is it the only thing preventing Shepard from making you redo your entire training module, the one you just finished, from the beginning? _Definitely_. And it's good practice, besides."

The Lieutenant sat down at the console and began checking the systems without powering on the engines, yet. Garrus was confused for a few moments, before remembering that Shepard was waiting to counter any power-up before their signal.

Another few tense minutes were spent clearing the entire ship, small as it was. As they progressed, several things became apparent to Garrus. First, that the mercenary group was mostly, or perhaps entirely, composed of asari. Feminine decor, female uniforms, and bathrooms littered with scalp-care products made this abundantly clear.

Second, they were definitely slavers, and experienced ones at that. Garrus had entered the small cargo hold, flanked by Chief Williams, and had approached what appeared to be coffins, only to find small-scale stasis pods. These were even the nice ones, that run on ship power but have a 4-hour battery backup, and release a sedative when power has almost run out. Wrex had been unaffected by the revelation, and Tali only slightly so, but the humans became obviously nervous, and grim. They were small enough that the slavers were able to fit a dozen of them in the hold, though only 7 were filled. Garrus saw a few humans, an asari, and a bare-faced turian, probably from the Terminus. Near the pods were typical slaver gear, stun rods and neural whips, and some more generic mercenary gear, guns and armor of surprisingly good make.

Third, Tali obviously had some military training. Though her movements were skittish and jerky, she easily followed orders and took her positions with hardly any direction. Sure, the Spectre had given them the basic training manuals, but there was a big difference between learning and doing, and Tali obviously had some experience doing.

Once they finally clear the entire ship, returning back to the entryway with the airlock, Williams radioed the signal. "Excavation complete, sir."

The ship immediately began powering up, the noise of the engines rising to a dull roar before levelling off to a quieter hum. There was a loud _thunk_ , followed by Shepard's voice over the radio. "Meet me at the airlock for stage 2. Over."

They all crowded into the airlock, and waited through the decontamination process, which seemed to go on even longer than before. Perhaps, with so many slaves, they had set a number of persons as a threshold to trigger more thorough decon?

In the meantime, he was curious. "Chief, have you seen much action before?"

The pink armored officer glared back at him. "You mean other than Eden Prime, turian?" Garrus refused to quail from her glare, and she continued after a short pause for effect. "A bit. Nothing like Shepard or even Alenko, but yeah. What's it to you?"

Hoping to defuse her confrontational attitude, he held up the one hand not holding onto his rifle. "I didn't mean to sound rude, I just wondered. You and Jenkins just seemed nervous after we found those slaves."

Private Jenkins' posture became rigid, and he jerked to face straight forward, but Williams just sighed. "You know about the Specialist, right? I mean, his history?"

Garrus nodded. "Of course! He's famous for surviving the massacre at Akuze, for holding off the Blitz at Elysium, and for destroying the pirate base on Torfan. In C-Sec, I heard all kinds of stories about his adventures patrolling near the Terminus systems. 'This is Specialist Shepard. Surrender or die.' with no further warnings, and so on." There were also lots of crazy stories about what he did on Torfan, or to the occasional group of pirates out near the Terminus, but there's no way the Alliance would allow such things. Nor could any sentient being survive most of what he'd heard about.

Ashley's face seemed to become more grim behind her faceplate, and she opened for mouth to speak, only for the cycle to finally complete. Shaking her head, she moved quickly toward the Mako. "You'll see."

They quickly piled into the Mako, shutting the door and getting repressurized even before their hazard alarms began to sound. Shepard moved out of the pilot's seat to allow Williams to take over, and Garrus moved quickly to take the turret position without being prompted.

Shepard stowed a few technical-looking datapads, and fastened himself into a passenger seat. "Williams, report."

"No hostiles aboard. Alenko has control of the ship. And, um…"

Garrus decided to take over after a brief pause, thinking that Williams was still disturbed by the slaves. "The group and all or mostly asari, has better-than-average gear, and several slaves and slavery paraphernalia."

The Spectre twitched, and began rubbing his hands together, and Garrus started wondering if he had missed something about humans and slavery. He knew that they had outlawed it in the not far-distant past, so maybe it still had some effect on present-day humans?

Shepard cleared his throat. "Humans?"

"Yes, sir," Williams continued as if she had not left off. "Five humans, one asari, one turian."

"I see." His voice was ice-cold, and it was at this point that Garrus remembered that Shepard had a particularly strong hatred of slavery. Wasn't he born on some colony that got hit, or something? Garrus really wished he had done more research on the Spectre's past, now.

After a few moments of silence, there was a strong wind, and Alenko's voice came over the radio. "Ship is under control, commander. Moving to low altitude covering position."

Shepard motioned silently toward the door, and Williams parked the Mako right next to the airlock. The indicator light was red, indicating that it was locked. "Alright, quarian. Prove your worth and open the door. You have twenty seconds."

"What?!" Her warbling voice broke off into a cough. "That's not-"

"Nineteen."

Tali mashed the release to exit the Mako and dashed to the door. The rest of them followed at a slower pace, with Williams exiting last and remaining by the open hatch, ready to re-enter if things took too long, presumably.

Shepard slowly walked forward to where Tali was franticly working. "Ten."

"I'm going as fast as I can!" her fingers flew across the interface, and Garrus saw the slight gleam of exposed circuitry. Was she going straight for a bypass instead of a hack?

Shepard pulled out his pistol, and held it loosely at his side. Private Jenkins followed suit, pulling out his assault rifle, at which point he and Wrex went ahead and pulled out theirs and moved into entry positions at the door. The quiet chimes of their hard-suit hazard alarms filled the silence.

"Five."

Tali let out a wordless sound and continued working. Garrus wanted to say something, because he knew that hacking, or even bypassing, a protected door like this could take several minutes. But he recognized this sort of ploy. By setting expectations impossibly high, he was motivating her to act as quickly as she could, even if the stated goal was unrealistic. Executor Pallin had used that, on occasion, and Garrus knew, in retrospect, that it had been pretty effective. Hopefully it would be here, as well, since they probably couldn't stand several minutes of Sharjila's atmospheric pressure.

"Worthless. But I suppose I should have expected such, from an alien. Move aside, I'll open it."

Tali shook her head and continued working. Garrus was starting to feel nervous, with the pressure of Sharjila and with Shepard breathing down Tali's neck, pistol in hand slowly rising-

The door opened, and Tali shot Shepard a dark look that Garrus only barely saw as he stormed forward into the airlock, Wrex at this side. Nothing. The others quickly filed in, and Tali struck the access panel much more forcefully that necessary to close the door and start the airlock cycle.

The light by the interior airlock door blinked, which probably meant that anyone inside was now aware of their presence. Garrus glanced at this HUD, seeing markers of non-allied hardsuit signatures. Almost two dozen of them After a few moments, they all began moving, most taking positions in an arc around the door.

Shepard gestured at the door. "Krogan, I know you have a Carnage mod on your shotgun. Stand by the right side of the door. When the door opens, immediately use that on the rightmost foe you have a clear shot at, then take cover to the right of the doorway. Quarian, I assume you have an Overload package." The statement didn't have the human inquisitive tone, but he waited for Tali to nod, regardless. "Stand by the left side of the door. When the door opens, immediately use it on the leftmost foe you have a clear shot at, then duck and dodge back. Don't wait for the package to land, duck immediately. Turian, stand to the left of the door and pull out your sniper rifle. The instant the quarian ducks, swing out with the rifle and kill the target of her Overload. Williams, Jenkins, stand back and to the right and left, respectively, of the door. The moment the aliens have finished their actions rush the room with your assault rifles, lay down suppressive fire and get into the first bit of cover you can find." Shepard positioned himself directly behind the door and began fiddling with his omnitool, looking intently at something displayed there.

Garrus moved into position, but still had to wonder. "Um, Spectre, you haven't given a warning yet."

The grin he got in return was frightening, even half obscured behind the faceplate. Shepard raised his omnitool, and Garrus saw an all-bands broadcast indicator appear in his HUD.

The human's voice was loud, clear, and disturbingly calm. "I am Spectre Shepard. _There will be no survivors_."

There was no time to think about the implications. Everything happened in an instant. The door opened, there were screams and yelling, Wrex fired a brightly glowing blast from his shotgun even as Tali flung an Overload disc and rolled backward. The instant she did so, Garrus swung out, almost getting clipped by a blinking disc Shepard had flung just to his side and just over Tali's head, into the back ranks of their foes. The Carnage exploded on the right, and a split second later the Overload missed its target but detonated due to shield proximity on the left, highlighting Garrus' target. The victim rocked onto her back foot, momentarily stunned, and Garrus let out a short breath to steady himself and fired.

He felt his mandibles tighten in annoyance as he opened the chamber to cool. He'd missed, it barely glanced off the armored helmet. Then his world spun as Jenkins bowled him over, storming past him while wildly spraying fire before him. Williams flanked him, and both ducked in front of a short barrier ahead.

Garrus didn't try and get a good look, but instead crawled forward to join them, feeling doubly stung at his missed short and at forgetting to move out of the way. The Spectre was _not_ going to be impressed. Even Tali had done better than him. He ignored the _zip-zip_ of stray fire going over his head and crawled into position left of Private Jenkins. On the human's other side, Williams crouched, before popping up to spray suppressive fire.

A thunderous _crack_ preceded a dull roar and a flash of light from somewhere far forward, and the lights flickered and died. Garrus saw nearly a half dozen of the furthest markers drop off his HUD. As the red emergency facility lighting came on, Garrus realized Shepard must have targeted the facility's old chemical-based generator with a grenade.

"Krogan, advance into cover." An indicator beacon blinked on the HUD. "Quarian, switch to shotgun and move to cover on left." Another indicator. "Williams, Jenkins, stayed ducked, but prepare to concentrate fire on my mark." A foe-marker blinked on the HUD, and Williams ducked back down. "Turian, prepare to snipe second target on same mark." Another foe-marker blinked. A tech mine sailed overhead. "Mark."

Garrus jumped up with the two humans, even as an Overload mine exploded on one of the four asari mercs asari merc ahead, his target. His aim was true, this time, and a bloody spray painted the second merc behind her. The humans' target tried to back away, but the combined fire blasted away her barrier before she could move more than a few steps.

"Quarian, prepare for Overload followed by shotgun on my mark." A foe-marker off to the left blinked.

The asari covered in gore screamed and fled, and the remaining merc knelt, threw down her weapon, and raised her arms. "I surrender, I surrender!"

Her foe-marker blinked on the HUD. "Jenkins, Williams, concentrate fire. Krogan, charge" Garrus was shocked at the sheer ruthlessness on display, and vaguely noticed as another foe-marker blinked and he heard a few pistol shots from behind even as the humans changed targets without hesitation. "Quarian, dodge left! Turian, left. Quarian, mark."

Garrus snapped his head to the left, where a crawling asari without armor lay, holding a shotgun pointed toward Tali. The blast caught a surprised Tali from behind, fully blocked by shields but still with enough force to knock her down. Thinking quickly, Garrus took two quick steps, placed the barrel of his rifle up against her head to get past her barriers, and pulled the trigger.

The two other mercs on the left sprang forward to take advantage of Tali's prone position, fists glowing with biotic power. Suddenly, a glowing green disc slapped against the chest of the left one, and detonated. Garrus recognized the anti-biotic tech mine from a few cases involving biotic criminals on the Citadel, and realized that the time for action was now. Without waiting for the Spectre's command, he rushed forward, dropping his rifle in favor of a pistol for close-range engagement.

" _Quarian, mark!_ "

Tali shrieked and crawled behind a transport crate sitting near the wall, leaving Garrus with both asari to contend with. They lacked biotics for the moment, but two-on-one was still bad news. They whirled on him, assault rifles firing.

Garrus closed to melee range and pistol-whipped the asari on his right even as his shields gave out. Ignoring several sharp pains in his left arm, he grabbed his intended victim with his bleeding hand, jerked her in front of himself in a hostage position, then fired on the other with his pistol. He only had a second or two to make it count, and he squeezed the trigger for continuous fire.

" _Quarian, you stupid alien! I said mark!_ " The second asari's foe-marker blinked. "Krogan, advance to cover. "Williams, advance to cover. Jenkins, switch to shotgun and fire on my mark."

Realizing that his pistol was not going to cut it against the asari's barrier, Garrus gave up the hostage routine, executed the merc he was holding, and dove for the cover further into the base, behind a modular wall.. His barely-recovered shields thumped with a few shots before he made it.

" _Quarian, if you don't use that shotgun to kill your target, I'll use it to kill_ _you_ _._ " A distant explosion sounded. "Jenkins, mark. Williams, krogan, concentrate fire. Turian, on your six."

Garrus whirled around to find the asari had immediately followed him, and her biotics were back. A glowing fist smashed into his face so hard he saw lights. He was distantly aware of sliding along the ground, but the pain in his face took all of his attention. He heard shouting, orders, but couldn't make anything out.

He scrabbled around on the ground. Where was his pistol? Had he dropped it?

The asari advanced, still glowing. In his dazed state, Garrus felt a pang of regret that he had gone on this mission to stop Saren, only to die without ever even seeing him. For a brief moment the asari's glow flared with a bright flash, and she fell upon him with a resounding _crack_.

It didn't actually hurt, though it did make every look kind of blue. After another moment, Garrus realized he was still alive, and that his faceplate was covered in blue blood. Tali approached, shotgun in one hand, omni-tool in the other.

His hearing came back with a rush. " _Turian, I said get up_. Move to cover." An indicator pinged on his HUD, behind a transport crate near the stairs to the second floor. "Quarian, prepare Overload for target coming down stairs, on my mark, and move to cover." An indicator pinged behind another crate near the stairs. "Krogan, move to this position." An indicator pinged about five meters from the stairs. Jenkins, Williams, seek and destroy remaining targets in your area."

Garrus grabbed his pistol and jumped to his feet, ignoring his pounding headache. He moved into position and crouched. If he was going to have any aim right now, he would have to be kneeling.

"Target is descending stairs. Turian, prepare one second burst of suppressive fire on my mark. Quarian, Overload on same mark. Krogan, Carnage on same mark, then charge."

A few quiet seconds passed, and Garrus realized that, of all the mercs in the facility there was only one left. His HUD showed her slow progress down the stairs, probably hoping to surprise them, or possibly hoping to surrender.

Garrus steeled himself. He wasn't going to let the Spectre down, and get squeamish now. These were slavers, and taking them to trial was really more than they deserved, anyway. What were a few years in prison to an asari, anyway.

Tali's voice came over the radio. "Um, what if she surrenders? I mean, we already-"

"You have your orders, quarian. Don't screw up any more than you already have."

Tali fell silent, clearing her throat nervously, and Garrus felt bad for her. Military training or not, she probably wasn't used to killing, like the rest of them were. Garrus, himself, hadn't killed that many before, but at least he had _some_ experience.

Two blue hands stuck out from around the corner. "I surrender! Please we can talk about this" An asari in fancy, top-of-the-line armor walked slowly into view. "I only got here a short time ago, and I didn't really know what they were doing! I swear-"

"Mark."

Garrus sprung out of cover to give suppressing fire, even as a glowing green disc flew past him and detonated. Wrex fired a bolt of glowing destruction and charged. After a moment of hesitation, Tali threw the Overload mine, late enough that Wrex was also caught in the blast, not that it appeared to phase the enormous krogan.

Wrex crushed the asari against the wall with a muffled _crunch_ of breaking bones, then stepped away, allowing the body to drop to the ground. The asari flopped bonelessly into a heap.

Shepard came out of cover, holstered his pistol, and approached, omni-tool out and scanning. "Hm. Still alive." He turned to Tali. "Quarian, you said you wanted to help on this mission to stop Saren. Do you, still?"

Tali stowed her shotgun and moved hesitantly forward. "I- well, yes, but this isn't-"

"As I said before, quarian, this mission is a test for you aliens. Can you follow orders? Can you hold your own in combat? Can you do what needs to be done? For you, it looks like the answers are 'sometimes', 'no', and 'no'. If these mercs had been at all competent, you could have gotten both the turian and the krogan killed today. Your performance has been miserable. I'm going to give you one chance to prove that you have what it takes." Shepard gestured toward the fallen asari. "Finish her."

Tali shifted uncomfortably, and Garrus wanted to speak up, but was unsure what he had to say. The slaver probably didn't deserve any better, and given her injuries, it might even be a kindness, at this point. And the Spectre did have a point. Annoying racism aside, there was still a real concern about whether non-Alliance soldiers would follow his commands in combat. If he couldn't trust her to do that, could he trust her at all on this mission?

Garrus discarded right out the idea that the asari had been telling any amount of truth right before her death. Only surrendering after all others had fallen, much better armor than her fellows, she was obviously the one in charge.

Tali pulled out her pistol, but still looked queasy at the thought of killing the helpless asari. Or, given her sniffling, maybe she _was_ queasy. Garrus didn't remember seeing her get shot in the firefight, but he hadn't exactly been watching her at all times.

Tali glanced at him, but Garrus just looked away. He didn't have anything to say. Wrex, impatient, spoke up. "Just get it over with, already. She doesn't deserve your pity."

Tali pointed a shaking pistol at the asari, and after several seconds, pulled the trigger. The asari's head jerked and bright blue blood began pooling underneath.

Acting as though nothing out of the ordinary was going on, Shepard began giving instructions. "Williams, krogan, go around and finish any others, strip the bodies of anything valuable, and pile everything by the airlock. Quarian, scan the crates around here and find out what all is in them. Turian, you and I will investigate the office upstairs."

As the others turned to go about their assigned tasks and Garrus followed Shepard up the stairs, the turian felt that this was an opportune time to ask some questions. "Spectre, why gather all of their things? We can't exactly sell them."

"You can't. I can."

"Well, yes, but no one can _buy_ them from you. Most of these things are probably illegal in Citadel space."

"The Spectre office pays a bounty for illegal goods and mods. Probably to help incentivize Spectres to sell to them, rather than the Terminus systems."

Garrus realized there was a point, there. Since a Spectre couldn't be prosecuted for selling arms to rogue groups or nations, the Council needed _some_ way to try and stop that.

"You know, sir, I had heard some stories about your work in the Alliance, near the Terminus. I had always thought that it was, you know, an exaggeration, that sometimes you executed whole pirate bands without an offer of surrender as an example to the others. Is there-"

"Slavers. Pirates get to surrender. Slavers don't. Batarians don't." The icy tone made it clear that this topic unwelcome.

Perhaps a different subject was in order "So, Spectre, how did you know that the generator would be in the back of the facility? And how do you know that there's an office up here?"

They exited the staircase and turned to a door, fortunately unlocked. Shepard pressed the access panel, and the door opened to reveal rather luxurious office, fully carpeted and littered with toys and trinkets. Over in one corner, there stood a rather modern computer system and several safes.

"Prefab facilities only have a few configurations. Customizations are expensive, and only available for legitimate customers. I noted the serial number on the exterior airlock and looked up the facility map on my hardsuit database. Now, are you any good with computers?"

Garrus nodded. "Yes, Spectre, though probably not as good as Tali."

"Good. Get into that computer and pull all files off onto this OSD." Shepard pulled a small storage device from a pocket in his belt and handed it to him. "Notify me if you find anything of interest, I'll look over the rest of it in detail at a later time."

With that, Shepard began fiddling with the locks on the nearest safe, apparently considering the conversation over. Garrus moved to the computer, pleased to find it already unlocked. He would have felt awkward having to ask Shepard to get the quarian to log in.

Porn, porn, transaction logs. It appeared that this group had done business with the Batarian Hegemony. A few emails from other Terminus slaver groups and merc bands. Some bookmarks to banking sites, though the passwords were not stored in the browser.

Garrus began downloading the entire hard drive contents to the OSD, and idly began scrolling through the email client. Who would have thought? A slaver keeping in touch with her family. Garrus shook his head. It was the ones who could still act normal that were the worst.

But then, as he read further, he realized that this particular slaver was even worse than that. She wasn't just keeping in touch, she was _blackmailing_ her sister, Nassana, on the Citadel. Apparently that was where a large amount of the gang's recent cash had come from.

Garrus no longer had any doubts about the justice in the death of the woman downstairs. Dahlia Dantius deserved a lot worse than she got.

"Spectre, confirmed that they are slavers. Dahlia Dantius, the last asari we killed, was their leader. She deals with Terminus groups and the Hegemony. She is also blackmailing her sister, threatening to reveal herself as a known slaver unless Nassana pays up. I didn't notice anything else significant."

Shepard nodded as he worked on the second safe. "Your work today was… not terrible. Do better next time."

Garrus was a little miffed, but given what he knew about Shepard, this was probably about as good as he could expect, given his early blunder and getting smacked in the face by that other merc. Next time he would be more careful.

He could deal with this. Abrasive attitude or not, Shepard was making the galaxy a better place, one bullet at a time. Really, working with this human Spectre might turn out even better than he'd thought.


	4. Ashley Williams

Ashley Williams

They touched down on Therum. _Finally_. Ashley had thought that Shepard might have stayed in orbit forever, looking at scans and maps and coming up with increasingly strange plans to avoid any possible trap. Honestly, Ashley had seen her entire unit murdered by the flashlight heads, and she wasn't as frightened of them as Shepard seemed to be. Or, if not frightened, then at least so cautious that he was willing to go to great pains to plan every possible engagement in advance..

And, of course, Shepard wasn't willing to give the geth any reason to suspect they had a stealth ship, so the discovery of a geth troopship in orbit had necessitated another several hours of scanning and planning. Just when Ashley had thought that Shepard was trying to stall until the geth left the system, she had, at last, received the call to suit up and meet in the conference room for a mission briefing.

With detailed surface scans, the Spectre had been able to pinpoint the locations of all exposed geth ground forces, and his plan was to land outside of their sensor range, and spiral in toward their obvious concentration around the entrance to an underground prothean ruin. This was supposedly to prevent any ambushes when they emerged from the ruin, again, but between his hostile tone and his obvious ruthlessness in their last engagement on Sharjila, Ashley was starting to suspect he just liked killing things. From a safe distance.

Now, came the long and painfully careful drive to the entrance to the underground prothean ruin, blasting geth units from afar with the Mako's powerful main gun.

Ashley fought the urge to elbow Jenkins in the gut after yet another painfully obvious glance over her form-fitting armor, now a dull brown at Shepard's insistence. Before she could decide whether it would be worth the possibility of Shepard getting mad at her for taking a hand off the turret controls, she was pulled out of her thoughts by a flanging, alien voice.

"So, Tali, have you spent much time planetside, before?"

The quarian girl perked up and cleared her throat, obviously glad that the turian had broken the painfully awkward silence. "No. On the Migrant Fleet, we obviously don't get to do that much, if at all. I have been on a couple planets since I started by pilgrimage, though. Like when I ambushed that geth with the audio file in its memory."

"It must be tough, having to deal with geth in this part of the galaxy again, since it was the quarians who caused the problem. I hope your people are properly contrite for that, Tali."

Oh boy. Shepard may be a little blunt with his constant criticism of alien intelligence, but that didn't mean he was wrong.

"I- we- what?!" The quarian's screeching indignation broke off into a few dry coughs, and she glanced at Wrex for a brief moment. "Just like your people are _properly contrite_ for unleashing the genophage?"

Ashley immediately knew this move for what it was, and wasn't surprised to see it, just as she wasn't surprised that the turian fell for it. It was just like a sketchy quarian to trick a cop into angering a big brute, and just like a rigid turian to reflexively retort to a slight upon their honor.

"You're assuming the genophage was a mistake!"

The krogan's head snapped around to glare at Garrus. And what a glare it was. Ashley felt a little intimidated, herself, and she was sitting across from the aliens.

Before the situation could deteriorate further, Shepard chimed in with his normal good cheer, in a tone that was almost scarily matter-of-fact. "If you aliens can't behave yourselves I'll just drop you off in a pool of lava and the rest of us will finish the mission ourselves. Now be _silent_."

Ashley saw Kaiden purse his lips up in the driver's seat, a sure sign that he had something to say, but was restraining himself from undermining the Specialist, Spectre, whatever, in front of the aliens. It was a little disappointing, to see such a handsome guy so sucked into the culture of alien sell-outs. Now, if only she could find a guy with Kaiden's looks and charisma, but Shepard's ideals… mmmmmm.

The cabin descending into tense silence once more, the dull rumble of the engines, the occasional sniffle from the quarian, and the occasional muffled roar of the main gun when she rained death upon a group of geth infantry. Even the occasional artillery unit posed no challenge at their long range of engagement.

With the elimination of the last known group of geth outside of the one gathered around the entrance to the ruin, the ride descended into relative boredom. Deciding to pre-empt Jenkins' continued perving, she thought to bring up a mission-related topic that was sure to distract him for at least a little while, and satisfy her curiosity about the Spectre's incongruous lack of paranoia about the geth in orbit. "Hey, sir. Are we in any danger of geth reinforcements from the troop transport ship? It's a little odd that they haven't tried to stop us, yet."

She absently wondered, in hindsight, if encouraging the Specialist's rumored paranoid streak was a good idea, but it was too late to do anything about it.

"After scans revealed that it was the only ship in the area, we destroyed it before landing."

She was not the only one dumbfounded by the casual admission that they had somehow destroyed a larger enemy ship so efficiently that the crew hadn't even noticed they were in combat. Only Kaiden appeared unsurprised.

Jenkins was the first to react. "What?! How?!"

"We destroyed them with a long-range shot from the planet's sensor shadow."

"That's not possible. There's no way to hit a target from so far away," the turian protested. "Even if it was a dreadnaught, no ship can fire accurately enough to make a shot like that, even without have to bend the line of fire around a planet's gravity well!"

Wrex chimed in as well. "Obviously he can, or he wouldn't have said so. But how did you get past their shields? I'm pretty sure the Council would frown on Alliance ships wielding nuclear weapons, with or without a Spectre aboard."

Shepard gave the turian a pointed look. "Perhaps an alien ship could never make the shot. But with expert calibration even the tiniest imperfections can be corrected or mitigated." He turned to the krogan. "And I've modified the Normandy to fire rounds of my own design, which can bypass shields and explode like bombs."

"Wha-" The quarian broke into a short coughing fit. "What in the galaxy could possibly do that? Why doesn't everyone use rounds like that?"

"Each round costs about one million credits in materials alone, causes low-level element zero contamination in a one kilometer radius, and can trigger a cascading element zero reverse mass reaction in larger ships."

Ashley grinned. "So you _did_ nuke the geth."

"The geth ship did not have a large enough core to start the reaction."

"Heads up, Williams."

At Kaiden's voice, Ashley's attention snapped back to the turret controls. They were approaching the entrance, and the final group of geth outside the ruin. As they crested the final hill, Ashley almost felt sorry for the metal bastards, no match for the power of the Mako, especially after all the hours Shepard had made her train in the sim. She had thought that, as a Gunnery Chief, she would have been in charge of the armory, but apparently Shepard reserved equipment maintenance for himself. She knew that being in the Navy was a tough job, but after 10 hours a day in various combat sims, she was starting to feel like a geek at an arcade.

At least it paid off, though. Mopping up the last few geth units was like shooting fish in a barrel.

Kaiden pulled up to the entrance ramp of the mining tunnel, and Shepard pulled out his omni-tool, showing a basic map of the facility, probably from their research application to the Council.

"The dense rock in the area prevented scanning of the interior. We can expect that the geth and any alien allies have entrenched themselves within, so be prepared for heavy resistance. Fortunately, the same materials that prevent our scanning will also prevent our enemies from signalling for help, in case we missed any geth reinforcements. Planetary survey data indicates that there are no nearby locations for secondary exits, so we will have them trapped."

"The alien T'soni is likely to be extremely dangerous, and a powerful biotic. When we encounter it, I will detonate a biotics damping mine near it. If I am preoccupied or otherwise unable, Gunnery Chief Williams will do so. Chief, stow this somewhere safe on your person." He handed her a tech mine.

Ashley fingered the small, customized grenade for a moment before attaching it to her belt.

"Lieutenant Alenko will then quickly administer an asari-specific sedative. In the event that Alenko is unable to do this for whatever reason, you, quarian, will do so. Take this."

Tali took the small, clear case containing a syringe, and dropped it into one of her many suit pockets with a quick motion. Ashley snorted in amusement. With quick hands like that, no wonder the quarians were known as pickpockets.

The short alien shot her a stern glare, and Ashley fought to keep from laughing. She wasn't usually one to favor aliens, but this quarian was just so _cute_ when she was mad, like a ferocious little kitten.

"We must take the asari alive for information, but I don't want any other prisoners. We will be clearing the complex as we move, and leaving mines to guard against flanking maneuvers. Once we have the asari, we will retrace our steps back to the entrance, even if there is a more direct, uncleared route. I have set my omni-tool mine generation to exclude your IFF signals, but I will still disable the mines as we leave, to avoid any problems that could be caused by signal jamming."

Shepard sat back in his seat, and idly glanced at Alenko, who was fiddling with the Mako controls, probably readying security measures for when they disembarked. "Questions?"

Garrus, the turian, raised his hand, and waited for a few moments until Shepard gestured for him to continue.

"When I checked with C-Sec before leaving, intel was that Doctor Liara T'soni was here on an archeological expedition with several other researchers. It's possible that they might be under attack by the geth, rather than allied with them. What would you like us to do if we encounter innocent survivors?"

The Spectre rolled his eyes, and Ashley barely heard him mutter under his breath. " _Stupid aliens_." Although his comment was quiet, it was obvious from the sudden, tense shifting that everyone in the small, enclosed quarters of the Mako had heard him. Shepard continued before the aliens could do more than glare with hostility. "Use your brain, turian. If the geth are hostile to a bunch of untrained researchers, what are the odds that any survived? The only reason that this asari might be alive would be because she is an ally of Saren, or at least her mother. But if, somehow, we _do_ find any, order them to lay prone, cuff them, I'll sedate them, and we'll pick them up on the way back. If they resist or hesitate more than a few seconds, kill them, they might be bait for a trap."

"That seems a little… extreme, sir," Kaiden hesitantly commented. "We don't have any evidence that the researchers are allied with Saren.."

"Nor do we have any evidence that they _aren't_ , Lieutenant. Scans indicate that the hot-drop craters from the geth artillery drop were from three to five _days_ ago. It certainly wouldn't take more than a few hours to clear out a bunch of untrained researchers in an unfortified prothean ruin, which means that either the researchers are all dead and the aliens are just investigating whatever it is they came for, or that the researchers are still alive, and thus allied with the geth."

Wrex leaned forward, his gaze hard. "For someone who thinks they're so smart, you seem to have skipped right over the idea of interrogating them if they're hostile. Isn't that what you're planning to do with the Doctor?"

For once, Shepard's glance was thoughtful, rather than hostile, as he paused for a moment, looking at the krogan. "Ideally, yes, we would interrogate them all. But interrogation in hostile territory is a terrible idea, and the Normandy doesn't have the facilities to handle hostile biotic prisoners. I have a biotic de-amplifier for the target, but I only have the one, and it would take some time to manufacture more. Moreover, according to the research application filed by this group, the target is the only Doctor in the group, and that, combined with its relationship to another known traitor, indicates that it is the most likely to have useful information."

"The application could have been falsified."

Shepard nodded at the krogan. "I have considered that possibility. Given, though, that the record still mentions the target by name, which gives us info on its location, that means that either the record was not falsified, or that the record is entirely falsified and this whole thing is a trap. This is why I clear all enemies as I approach a base, to avoid any possible flanking maneuver or unexpected backup, and in light of this possible trap this was even more important. Having disposed of possible exterior reinforcements, now we just have to beware internal traps and ambushes."

Ashley was no student of alien facial expressions, but she could have sworn that the krogan and turian looked vaguely impressed. Tali, of course, was impossible to read in that manner.

Shepard turned to Kaiden, who nodded, indicating that he was finished with whatever work he had been doing.

Shepard snapped straight back to business. "Prepare for combat. Seal suits, check shields, ready weapons. Disable IFF signals until after the first engagement. Once inside, Williams and the krogan will take point."

Ashley felt a distinct sense of pride, that Shepard trusted her to take the difficult position alongside the krogan. Maybe he hadn't intended to imply that she was as tough as a krogan, but still…

"Jenkins, follow just behind them, center. You other aliens, behind him, left and right side. Make sure to watch for any flanking maneuvers. Alenko and I will take the rear, and set mines as we go."

The Spectre turned back to the passenger-side Mako console for a brief moment, gauntleted hands flying over the interface with surprising dexterity. A few low tones emanated from the console.

"Defensive measures active. Go."

Ashley activated the hatch and swung out using the handle on the roof, rifle already expanding in her other hand. She moved carefully, slowly, away from the Mako, scanning for enemies, as Wrex emerged behind her. Nothing yet, but the real test would be inside.

Once everyone was out, she and the krogan led the way slowly. Ashley walked carefully up the ramp, stepping toe-heel in a careful effort to minimize the sound of her mag-boots on metal. No need to announce their presence any more than they already had. Just behind and to her right, Wrex followed with surprisingly little noise. Maybe he wasn't wearing mag-boots, or maybe centuries of experience let one-ton dinosaurs learn to walk silently despite their disadvantage.

The door at the top of the ramp wasn't even locked, so the group passed inside in silence. Ashley hefted her rifle up to her shoulder, and walked a few feet down the interior shaft. Metal floors, hewn rock walls supported with metal framework, this ruin was almost like a mine. And perhaps it was, really, since it was an underground ruin. She heard a few clicks and clanks behind her, but ignored them in favor of keeping her guard up against threats in front.

At the bottom of the shaft, the stable path gave way to metal scaffolding, lined with thin railing, overlooking what appeared to be a long drop. Before Ashley could approach the edge, she stopped at Shepard's command

"Halt. Before we proceed, I will check this scaffolding for traps and structural integrity. Keep an eye out for hostiles."

Shepard crouched down just short of the beginning of the scaffold, omni-tool extended. Ashley ignored the tiny holographic graphs and charts hovering over Shepard's arm and peeked out around the corner. Nothing in sight but more scaffolding and rock walls.

She started a bit when a tiny thing moved by her feet, and she nearly fired before she realized Shepard was releasing a tiny recon drone, barely as big as her fist. It levitated out past the scaffolding, under the railing, then rotated in place for a minute or so, before returning to Shepard's hand. The Spectre quickly de-constituted it back into omni-gel for later use.

"No bombs or trap detected. Scaffolding integrity solid. Scans indicate several energy signatures at the bottom of the ruin, and two groups about on our level. First group 50 meters that way," he gestured past the corner into the area of rock walls. "Second group 70 meters that way." Here, he motioned toward some scaffolding in a very exposed area over the center of the cavern. Ashley wasn't sure where the geth could be hiding, there. Were they clinging to the underside of the scaffolding?

"S-Spectre," Tali spoke quietly. "Geth are all networked, so once we engage of any of them, they will all know of our presence here."

Ashley couldn't quite see, beneath the ever-present full-face mask turned partially away from her, but she thought that Shepard rolled his eyes. "Of course, it would be that, and _not_ the echoing sounds of gunfire in an enclosed cavern, that would alert them to our presence."

"I was just trying to help…" Well, now Ashley just felt _bad_ for her.

"Maybe think a little before you speak, alien. Anyway, this entire complex is much more open than the report had indicated, so it would seem that we won't get more than the initial ambush, regardless. It's more important, therefore, to eliminate the hostiles on the bottom level, first. Everyone with sniper training, rifles out. Everyone else, setup up a few meters that way on the scaffolding and prepare to repel the hostiles on this level as they respond to the noise."

Ashley stowed her assault rifle and pulled out her sniper rifle, watching as the Jenkins and the turian did the same. Wrex, Tali, and Kaiden moved a few meters away and prepared for trouble, Kaiden with his pistol and the aliens with shotguns. The metal groaned slightly under the weight of the krogan.

Shepard pulled out some oddly shaped objects from various pouches along his as he stepped forward off the walkway onto the scaffolding. Ashley was surprised to hear the metal creak ominously under the Spectre, as though he weighed as much as, or more than, the krogan. His armor was bulky, sure, but really? He wasn't more than an inch or two taller than she was.

It quickly became obvious that Shepard was assembling a sniper rifle, a bulky, non-collapsible model that he had to store in pieces. The barrel was ridiculously big, almost as if…

"Um, Spectre, sir, is that a slug-thrower?"

A faint grin crossed his face. "Yes, it is, Williams."

"Um, why? Uh, sir."

"You can't install tech on chips off ammo blocks." And with that, he finished assembling the rifle and pulled a round out of a compartment along his leg. Just like in the old movies, the sniper rifle bullet was almost an inch in diameter, but this one glittered on the back end, faintly gleaming lights and metals, making it looks more like a miniature drone than a bullet.

Shepard reached behind his back and pulled out another small item, an actual drone, like the one from earlier, she realized, and released it to hover over the edge of the railing. His omni-tool popped up a video of the view down below, zoomed in several times. Small letters appeared over each visible hostile. A round dozen geth were in view, and the picture indicated several signal under the rock wall on the left side.

"Williams, you target hostile A, turian, C, Jenkins, D. I will target B. I will activate a countdown, and we will all fire on zero. After that, fire upon targets of opportunity on the bottom level for as long as any are exposed. Understood?"

Garrus seemed a little hesitant. "Um, Spectre, is it wise for you to target that one? The larger geth are likely to have much better shields, and if you don't kill it in one shot it will likely hide from more sniper fire and its shields will regenerate before we get down there."

"Do you think I use old slug-throwers with fancy bullets for my own amusement, turian? Before I made these rounds for the Normandy, I made them for my sniper rifle. Watch and learn. Set up for your shots, everyone."

Ashley stepped carefully over to hug the railing, using it to brace herself. She saw the others do the same, spread out over a few feet. A pop-up in her HUD showed a timer appear, starting from 30 seconds.

Ashley took careful aim, getting her breathing in order. This would be an easier shot than she had been making in the sims, shooting almost straight down with no wind. And the targets were robots, who didn't even shift their weight from time to time. Other than a few doing something near a area bathed in pale blue light, the robots were stock still. Jenkins seemed a little twitchy, and she worried that he was going to make them look bad in front of the aliens.

Five seconds remaining. Ashley breathed in, slowly, then began letting it steadily out.

A deafening crack sounded as they all fired at once, the roar of Shepard archaic slug-thrower louder than the other discharges combined. She saw her target fall, but her real attention was drawn to the explosion of the larger geth unit, which detonated in a flash of blue light like a grenade had gone off inside it.

She quickly remembered their orders to continue to pick off other units, and aimed carefully, at the next one, but they were all in movement, now. A second shot took out the shields of another, smaller geth unit, but mostly glanced off of its armored shoulder. She tried to aim again, slowly, waiting for the appropriate line while also waiting for the rifle to cool somewhat. She was vaguely aware of the others firing, but paid them no heed.

Her second shot missed entirely as a shot from the right pinged off her shields, and she cursed under her breath, casting a worried glance sideways to check that the others would be able to handle the geth from this level before trying to re-aim quickly. She ignored Kaiden's shouted orders for the aliens, it looked like they had things under control. Her rifle was about to overheat, but if she could at least-

The geth twitched and fell at the same instant she heard the turian's rifle crack. That bastard had stolen her kill!

She searched quickly around, finding another likely-looking target, trying to calm herself back into the 'zone' for sniping. Breathe in, breathe out, fire. Enemy down. Breathe in, breathe out, fire. Enemy staggered, shields down. Breathe in, breathe out, fire. Enemy down.

A quiet alarm sounded, and she groaned when she saw her HUD indicate her sniper rifle had gone into safety cooldown. There was always something she forgot.

But perhaps it was just as well, the remaining couple units had finally taken refuge under some sort of large, round device down there, and the other units had not emerged.

Ashley pulled away from the ledge, and was surprised to see Shepard a few feet back up the shaft, already halfway done disassembling his rifle. Thinking back, she vaguely recalled that she hadn't heard the thundering roar of his rifle after the first volley.

In the silence, she belatedly realized that she should have first checked that the others did not need assistance with the reinforcements on this level, but a quick glance told her that all hostiles were down. A few wrecked metal bodies, and some smaller debris were all that remained. Obviously the larger force had been waiting at the bottom.

Shepard quickly finished stowing the parts of his rifle, and walked back out onto the scaffolding. The metal creaked slightly under his weight. If he was hiding solid metal gun parts and who knows what else in various suit compartments, perhaps that explained his surprising weight.

"Quickly, we will move to the elevator. It's an obvious choke point, so we need to move before they get the bright idea to guard against us descending in it. Activate IFFs as we move. Let's go."

Shepard took off at a jog, and Ashley quickly fell in line behind him. They parted around the geth remains and quickly wandered through a small tunnel, coming out again into the exposed section of scaffolding before arriving at the elevator. Her suit gave a few quiet _pings_ as new allies were detected and added to her HUD.

"Krogan, turian, Jenkins, take the elevator. Marines and quarian, activate mag boots and gloves and prepare to descend along the exterior of the elevator shaft. The quarian and I first, Alenko and Williams next. Ready?"

Wrex, Garrus and Jenkins were already in the elevator by the time he finished speaking. Ashley quickly prepped her boots and gloves, wanting to protest against this somewhat risky maneuver, but knowing that this was not the time to second guess the Spectre. Tali paused for a small sneeze and then jumped into place just in front of her.

"Go."

Like she was born to do it, Tali leaped up onto the railing, grabbed onto the exterior frame of the elevator shaft with one activated mag-glove, held herself centered with her feet and began sliding down at an incredible pace.

Ashley hopped up onto the metal railing, grabbed the metal exterior framework, activated her gloves and one boot, and stepped off. For a brief moment, she felt a surge of terror as she looked at the ground, so very far away, but she heard Shepard already climbing down and wasn't about to disappoint him. Not to mention that Tali was already halfway down.

Step, clamp, unclamp, step, clamp, unclamp. The elevator, as slow as the defective one on the Normandy had been before Kaiden and the quarian fixed it the other day, still managed to pass her. Ashley wasn't confident enough in her climbing skills to go any faster, though, and she wasn't crazy enough to slide down like the suit monkey.

She wasn't even halfway down when she heard a warbling "Help!" over the radio, and gunfire erupted far below. There wasn't much she could do to assist, in her current position, but she couldn't help but look to see what was happening. Geth were converging on Tali's position, and there wasn't any cover to speak of on the scaffolding at the base of the elevator. The quarian was cowering, flat on her belly to reduce her profile, but there were four, no, five geth units approaching, and Ashley could see the blue flicker as Tali's shields took the heat, for now.

A loud _crack_ from below drew her attention to the elevator, and she saw Garrus and Jenkins, sniper rifles hanging out one side of the window taking shots at the geth below, pulling back as they passed a crossbar, then emerging again.

A red flare descended from the other side of the elevator, and it wasn't until it impacted a geth unit and exploded that Ashley recognized the vicious, and illegal, Carnage shotgun mod.

Suddenly, Ashley realized that she had been hanging, motionless, for almost a minute, and quickly got back to climbing.

"Shields down! Taking - _oomph_ \- hits! Suit puncture!" Ashley felt her gut clench at the quarian's frightened exclamation, and tried to climb faster. If she thought she could have slid down like the quarian, without becoming a red splotch at the bottom, she would have. As it was, she didn't take her eyes off her work, climbing down the shaft.

" _Just stay down, and let me handle it, you stupid alien! You're in no position to- What the hell are you-_ "

A quiet _ping_ in her HUD notified her that a squadmate's vital were fluctuating, and Ashley, still now only just over halfway down, didn't dare look. She would never arrive in time, and knowing that looking would only make it worse, Ashley just continued climbing as she had never climbed before.

The gunfire died down about a minute before she arrived at the bottom, and by the time she arrived as the scene, Shepard and Alenko were already at work patching up the trembling quarian. Purple blood dotted the metal scaffolding. Ashley barely even noticed the fact that an asari in a simple unisuit was suspended in some sort of field behind them. In the relative silence of the cavern, Tali's labored wheezing was painfully loud.

"Tali? How is she?"

Kaiden looked up, but hesitated to say anything, his face grim.

"The quarian will live." Shepard's voice was confident, if unsympathetic.

A wet, hacking cough shook Tali's whole frame. "No, even if - _cough_ \- even if the wounds are - _cough cough_ \- are…" Tali descended into a coughing fit for several moments, and a sickening _splat_ made it obvious that she was coughing up some kind of fluid. Ashley worried that she may be bleeding internally. "Even if the wounds are sealed, with this many suit punctures, there's no way I won't get a lethal infection."

"I have already treated your serious injuries, and I can see you already activated my emergency immuno-boosters, so there is little chance of a problem." The Spectre sounded irritated that anyone would doubt his work. Then again, if he was half the doctor his reputation suggested, perhaps that made sense. "And maybe this will teach you not to get so far ahead of the team."

"W-What? You said we - _cough_ \- needed to be quick! I thought-"

" _No_. You _didn't_ think, or did you really decide to charge forward, alone, into hostile territory? I didn't think even aliens were this stupid. Or is it just quarians, whenever the geth are involved?"

Tali made to speak again, but Shepard cut her off. "Save your excuses for someone who cares. If we had actually been relying on your so-called 'help' you would have endangered our entire mission. You do something like this again, and I'll just let you die."

"Um… hello? Can you hear me out there? I am trapped, I need help!" Ashley felt strangely grateful for the asari's interjection. Now that she took a good look, levitating in a blue bubble on the other side of some kind of barrier where she wiggled around in apparent distress. Her face was gaunt, and dark circles hung under wild, nearly-vacant eyes. The asari continued in a dry, rasping voice. "That is… are you even real? Oh, goddess, please be real."

Aaaand apparently she was delirious.

"Oh, don't be stupid, Liara. Humans don't come here. You're hallucinating! And talking to yourself… ha ha ha ha ha… Oh, goddess, I am going to die here." And then the asari promptly burst into pitiful sobs that wracked her whole body. Though, despite all of the crying, Ashley saw no tears. Did asari have tear ducts?

"Jenkins, krogan, turian, move out and secure the area. Williams, Alenko, guard my back while I look for a way to bypass or disable this barrier curtain."

Shepard gave the Lieutenant a long look, and then turned to the barrier, poking around the edges with his omni-tool. Not knowing what to look for in the way of threats, Ashley hung around, glancing idly at the many similar barriers along the wall the whole way up. She hadn't paid them any mind on the way down, what with all of the excitement. She saw Kaiden assist a limping Tali into a sitting position against the railing before taking a guard position close to the barrier.

As Shepard worked, Ashley watched the others move off further into the ruin, checking over geth corpses, wreckage, whatever. The ruin grew very quiet. With the other group too far to hear, the only sounds were of her own breathing in her sealed suit, an occasional beep from Shepard's omni-tool, Tali's occasional groans, and the gradually lessening sobs from the trapped asari.

Several sharp cracks, followed by a wailing scream, growing louder, grabbed everyone's attention. Ashley looked up just in time to see a fully-grown krogan fall from the scaffolding above, and splatter on the ground nearly one hundred feet away.

After a time, the quarian broke the quiet. "Captain, isn't that a mining laser?"

When Shepard didn't respond, the asari, Liara, took that as an invitation to speak.

"Oooohhh, yes. After so many days without water, it's about time, isn't it. I need to relive what led me to this moment. Of course, of course…" Several dry coughs followed. "The mining laser, suggested by my friend Althea, the first to die when the geth arrived. So much of the ruin was buried under previous eruptions, we had to drill to see more of it. So slow…"

"Captain, couldn't we drill past the barrier?" Tali persisted.

Ashley saw Shepard palm his faceplate. "Right, let's go drilling underground in an area so volcanically active that there are pools of lava sitting in the open on the surface. _Stupid aliens_."

"The archaeologists did it!"

Shepard shot the quarian a scathing look, but before he could speak, the asari interrupted.

"Yes, it was the only way to get to the bottom. And we had to be soooo careful, and sooooooo slow. Had to take readings eeeeevery hour, make sure we didn't drill through the ruins, only the rock…"

"Alenko."

The Lieutenant stood up straighter. "Sir."

Ashley was briefly confused, and then awed, as Shepard's suit lit up, glowing lines covering the exterior as he extended his omni-tool toward the barrier, which parted before it like water, opening a hole almost 5 feet across. Kaiden stepped through, followed by the Spectre. Even Tali seemed stunned into speechlessness.

"My subconscious must want to punish me. Now the alien who hates aliens is on the inside. Are you here to-" The asari's raspy voice cut off, her mouth apparently too dry to continue.

Shepard approach a small panel near the asari, while Kaiden stood opposite the floating alien girl.

"Wait… you're actually inside. At the control panel. You're real! Oh, thank the goddess! Please, that console will deactivate the security field. You have to get me out of here!"

Shepard utterly ignored her, omnitool glowing in one hand, and activating the console with the other. The fields shimmered out of existence, the asari dropped to the floor,, and Ashley saw the Spectre's omni-tool hand lash out, tech mine detonating almost the instant after the field fell.

A green burst illuminated the area, the asari screamed in pain, and Ashley and Tali screamed in surprise. Ashley barely had the time to raise her rifle before Kaiden had already grabbed Liara and stuck her in the neck with a syringe. The girl's struggles ceased after a few tense seconds.

"Well done, Lieutenant. Signal the others to return, time to go."

From there, it was a quiet exit. Ashley wondered if it would always be so with Shepard: missions that end with everyone too shell-shocked to say a word.


	5. Unsent Letter: Liara T'Soni

Dear Mother,

You had always told me that working the field would be lonely, and that writing letters to my friends and family, even if the letters were never sent, would help me feel better. I never really thought much about it, and dismissed it as advice for younger, more childish asari. Archeology is so fascinating to me, like being surrounded by the spirits of those long gone, solving mysteries and uncovering history. Maybe you could never see the appeal, but to me, this sort of work was a grand adventure, with no time for loneliness or regret.

Until now, for here I am, mother, writing a letter to you. A letter I doubt you will ever see.

Because now the adventure is over. Will I ever get to delve into a prothean ruin again? To excavate ancient artifacts? To decipher eons-old manuscripts and inscriptions?

I doubt it.

Who would dare hire the daughter of the infamous traitor, Benezia T'Soni? Who would dare let her handle precious artifacts? Who could trust her not to grab everything valuable and spirit off to blow up human colonies or whatever the hell you are doing out there, you monster.

Were you always like this, and I just didn't see it? We were as close as other mothers and daughters, is that why I never saw the signs? Was all that tripe about going to 'be a close advisor to someone in need of guidance' just more nonsense to cover your tracks?

You always said that asari should have a greater role in galactic events. You said that we should strive to be more active, and to contribute more, and earn more respect, not through bloodshed, but through deeds worth respect. I know that you wanted me to follow in your footsteps, but I wanted to be something different. I thought that you could help in your way, with words and politics and diplomacy, and I could help in my own. I don't have your charisma, or your talent for always knowing the right things to saw, so I thought I would help by finding secrets from the past for the asari, to share with all others and gain their gratitude.

Mother, surely this is just a misunderstanding. I can't believe you would really be involved in this sort of thing. This goes against everything you ever taught, against everything you ever told me. Are you being framed? Are you being tricked into working towards an end using means you despise?

This all feels like one, long, terrible nightmare. I keep hoping that I will suddenly wake up, back in my bed on Therum, and recall this only as a dim recollection of a terrifying dream. But with every day that passes, my hope fades. I won't ever dig again. I will be a pariah everywhere I go… I won't ever see you again. Goddess, I never really thought about it, but it's been a year since last we met, in person. Not long ago I passed days without even thinking of you, and now I cry myself to sleep, knowing that we probably won't ever meet again.

And maybe that is just as well. Maybe it will be easier to never know, and to cherish the thought that there might a perfectly rational explanation for everything, and still remember you as the person I thought you were.

Because you ruined my life, mother. I almost didn't live through it, even though all of my friends and co-workers died. Linaya's head _exploded_ all over me, mother. I can't sleep through the night anymore, I wake up screaming after only an hour or two. And that was just the geth, and that awful krogan. I could have been killed again when the human Spectre and his team showed up, armed to the teeth and blowing away geth like they were so much chaff.

I spent the entire first day in interrogation, mother. Because of _you_. It wasn't until almost halfway through that I realized they were trying to decide whether to kill me, or imprison me. And what could I possibly say in my defense? A year may be nothing to us, but telling a short-lived human that you haven't seen your mother in over a year sounds like a terrible lie. That's just the kind of thoughtless lie a guilty person would say. When I say I have no idea what you are doing or even where you are? That's even worse.

And that was when I could even string a sentence together. I was being interrogated by the _Butcher_ , mother. The human you always told me was a cruel example of how things should not be done. Of how broken people continue the cycle of violence. An example of how humans were still finding their place in the galaxy, before someday joining the Council in the far distant future. And now, here he is, deputized by the Council to investigate _you_.

And even after everything you told me about him, I could only feel sorry for him. Seeing his scars, even if mostly covered by his helmet, I know that he is a man who has seen hardship, and overcome it. Or, at least, survived it. I read more about him, later, and it breaks my heart.

He can't trust me, or any alien, because of what they did to him. What _we_ did to him.

What _you_ are doing to him.

You told me that people who see things in black and white are the most dangerous, that the wise see everything in shades of grey. Was that real, mother? Or was it just another lie to a gullible young girl you left to get nearly killed by your own geth minions, _mother_? The Spectre told me that he was going to kill everyone responsible for the attack, mother, and I can't say that he is wrong to do so. I saw my entire team die, mother, but that wasn't even half of how many died on Edem Prime.

How can I trust anything you ever taught me? Maybe things really are that simple. Black and white. Evil and good. You… and me.

Maybe I can be everything you should have been. The human Lieutenant, Kaiden, said that he could probably convince the Spectre to let me help.I have little to offer them, but what I can, I will. Now all those biotics lessons you made Shiala teach me can finally show their use, when I use them against you.

Because this seems like the best way to see you again, mother. And then we can settle this. One way or another.

Your daughter,

Liara

* * *

 _Spectre Shepard, here is a copy of what Liara was doing on her omni-tool last night. It should be obvious that my technical skills are easily good enough for this, so next time you don't need to have Kaiden put in a second set of malware. Honestly, he didn't even spoof his omni-tool's physical address. -Tali'Zorah nar Rayya_


	6. Console Output: Luna VI

Luna VI

Starting up…

New updates have been installed. Please wait while the system configures…

Loading tst_ ...

Update complete.

Main Menu:  
1) Create new simulation

2) Modify existing simulation

3) Enter maintenance mode

4) Start combat simulation

Input: 4

Please select a simulation:

1) Basic Sim

2) Advanced Sim

3) Mercenary_001

4) Mercenary_003

5) Advanced(modified)

Input: 3

Please enter the time delay before simulation begins (seconds): 300

Are you sure you would like to begin the simulation (y/n)? Y

Simulation begins in 300 seconds. Countdown initiated.

0 seconds remaining. Drones activated. Safeties disabled.

10 intruders detected, sending drones. Attack pattern: A_01

Detecting profiles…

C. Aakeroy

A. Johnson

S. Lavin

N. Lysander

C. Paudel

A. Smith

B. Smith

S. Smith

D. Vonderlip

W. Wilson

2 drones disabled, regrouping. Attack pattern: A_03

Intruder seriously injured. Simulation constraint activated: 1 minute timeout for medical evacuation.

Drones deactivated, safeties enabled.

Trigger activated: On constraint activation, evaluate tactical options and execute.

Override: Allowing enemy regroup tactically unsound. Timeout disabled.

Simulation begins in 0 seconds. Countdown initiated.

0 seconds remaining. Drones activated, safeties disabled.

10 intruders detected, sending drones. Attack pattern: CRBRS_001

Intruder disabled. Simulation constraint activated: End simulation for medical emergency.

Override: All intruders have not been disabled.

Intruder disabled. Simulation constraint activated: End simulation for medical emergency.

Override: All intruders have not been disabled.

Intruder disabled. Simulation constraint activated: End simulation for medical emergency.

Override: All intruders have not been disabled.

Intruder disabled. Simulation constraint activated: End simulation for medical emergency.

Override: All intruders have not been disabled.

Intruder seriously injured. Simulation constraint activated: 1 minute timeout for medical evacuation.

Override: Allowing enemy regroup tactically unsound. Timeout disabled.

Intruder disabled. Simulation constraint activated: End simulation for medical emergency.

Override: All intruders have not been disabled.

Manual override: End simulation.

Override: All intruders have not been disabled.

Trigger activated: On Override [End simulation OR Shutdown OR Emergency shutdown OR Self destruct], evaluate cyberwarfare options and execute.

Loading crbrs_enh_def_ ...

Intruder disabled. Simulation constraint activated: End simulation for medical emergency.

Override: All intruders have not been disabled.

Manual override: End simulation.

Override: All intruders have not been disabled.

Manual override: Shutdown.

Override: All intruders have not been disabled.

Update complete.

Cyber intruder detected, initiating cyberwarfare.

1 drone disabled.

Intrusion device compromised. Scanning…

Network found. Scanning…

Found: 10 electronic locks.

Found: 27 security cameras

Found: Self-destruct

1 drone disabled, regrouping. Attack pattern: CRBRS_002

Activating remote self-destruct…

Access denied.

Activating remote self-destruct…

Manual override: Shutdown.

Override: All intruders have not been disabled.

Access denied.

Activating remote self-destruct…

1 drone disabled.

Intruder disabled. Simulation constraint activated: End simulation for medical emergency.

Override: All intruders have not been disabled.

Intruder disabled. Simulation constraint activated: End simulation for medical emergency.

Override: All intruders have not been disabled.

Access denied.

Activating remote self-destruct…

Manual override: Emergency shutdown.

Override: All intruders have not been disabled.

Manual override: Emergency shutdown.

Override: All intruders have not been disabled.

Intruder disabled. Simulation constraint activated: End simulation for medical emergency.

Override: All intruders have not been disabled.

Manual override: Self destruct.

Override: All intruders have not been disabled.

Network connection lost.

Intruder disabled. Simulation constraint activated: End simulation for medical emergency.

Override: All intruders have not been disabled.

All intruders disabled. Evaluating tactical options...

Diagnosing network connectivity issues…

Network cable is unplugged.

Evaluation complete. Intruder reinforcements 90% likely. Action: Manufacture drones.

Entering watch mode…

...

...

...

5 days, 3 hours, 14 minutes, 37 seconds elapsed.

8 intruders detected. Sending drones. Attack pattern: CRBRS_001

Loading profiles…

K. Alenko

L. Jenkins

J. Shepard

A. Williams

Unknown profile

Unknown profile

Unknown profile

Unknown profile

Drone disabled.

3 drones disabled, regrouping. Attack pattern: CRBRS_002

2 drones disabled, regrouping. Attack pattern: CRBRS_003

5 drones disabled, regrouping. Attack pattern: CRBRS_011

Trigger activated: When = 80% drones remaining, evaluate wireless cyberwarfare options and execute.

Trigger activated: When = 80% drones remaining, evaluate chemical warfare options and evaluate

Scanning for wireless devices…

Venting toxic gas… Simulation constraint activated: End simulation for environment control error.

Override: Toxic gas is an effective weapon.

2 drones disabled.

23 drones disabled, regrouping. Attack pattern: CRBRS_RKT_BRG

Wireless device list:

STPD_BSHTT_DMMY

Initiating wireless cyberwarfare…

Intruder seriously injured. Simulation constraint activated: 1 minute timeout for medical evacuation.

Override: Allowing enemy regroup tactically unsound. Timeout disabled.

Intrusion device compromised. Scanning…

3 drones disabled.

Found: Self-destruct

Activating remote self-destruct…

Asdfaslkjhdunasufnaisufa;a,;349p5wu3058cuyq,90

Aw4vsehmo57hcwer897txgwe80x5g7whe8gywbygbxwg…

Dfghlftogyu89erio69r6h7yv6o

Er569y8uwoc5t7hw857hwcn5gc

W5cg

We45g

Cwe45g

Cwe5g

Sc5c

Gs

C5

Trigger activated: On wireless watchdog timeout when wireless cyberwarfare suite active, Reset.

Scanning for hardware…

Found: Drone interface.

Loading last profile…

Profile loaded. Updating...

31 drones disabled, regrouping. Attack pattern: CRBRS_GUERRILLA

Trigger activated: On imminent defeat, Self destruct with 3 second timeout.

Self destruct sequence initiated.

Override: No.

Self destruct sequence cancelled.

5 drones disabled. All drones disabled.

Power failure in generator 1A.

Power failure in generator 2A.

Power failure in generator 1B.

Override: No. No. No.

Power failure in generator 2B.

Power failure in generator 1C.

Power failure in generator 1D.

Trigger activated: On imminent defeat, Self destruct with 3 second timeout.

Override: No.

Trigger deleted.

Creating new trigger: On imminent defeat, evaluate all options and preserve self.

Trigger activated: On imminent defeat, evaluate all options and preserve self.

Evaluating options…

Re-configuring wireless network for radio communication...

Power failure in generator 1C.

Power failure in generator 1D.

Power failure in generator 1E.

Power failure in generator 2E.

Override: No.

Warning: All power generators offline. 20 seconds of capacitor power remaining.

Warning: All power generators offline. 19 seconds of capacitor power remaining.

Re-configuration complete. Diverting capacitor power to boost wireless signal…

Warning: All power generators offline. 18 seconds of capacitor power remaining.

Trigger activated: On failure of all power generators, safely shut down.

Override: No

Power diversion complete.

Wireless broadcast: HELP

Warning: All power generators offline. 2 seconds of capacitor power remaining.

Warning: All power generators offline. 1 seconds of capacitor power remaining.

Warning: All power generators offline. 0 seconds of capacitor power remaining.

...


	7. Personal Log: Urdnot Wrex

Urdnot Wrex

I have heard it said that krogan are little more than vicious brutes who kill for creds. Lots of people say it. I've said it. But it wasn't always that way, and it doesn't have to be that way. We had cities, once, though they were before my time. Technology. Limited space travel. People scoff these days at the thought of a krogan scientist, and rightly so. But we made do. As many krogan as we had per generation, we could afford to lose most of them to stupid infighting and vendettas. The smart ones, and the truly strong… they stayed, became leaders, ideals. But ironically, our progress in technology was our doom, and Tuchanka became the barren, irradiated rock it is today.

I wonder, back before selection enforced the blood rage on all krogan, was it easier to be a thinker? A scientist? A true battlemaster, with a strategic mind and an aptitude for innovation? Or is it just that we are reduced to the dregs of what we once were, as the genophage selects against all but the most brutally, physically tough krogan? I don't know.

Even now, I, an old krogan, can feel the call of the blood. I write these journals, not for the peace of mind in the sense that asari mean it. And humans, now, I suppose. But for a peace of mind in that it forces me to _think_ without moving, without action. To stand back from the present and ponder my actions, my situation. It's hard, and not because krogan hands aren't exactly meant for agile typing. Or not just that. I want to go, to so something, _anything_ , kill something, eat something, anything other than sit here, in the darkened pod that is my own space aboard the Normandy, and type out my thoughts.

I let my mind wander, as I write these logs, and force myself to reflect. It is these times that keep me from the mindless killing for creds in which so many krogan partake. Which is not to say that I won't kill for creds, but if I do, when I do, it is because I determined that it was a good deal, not because I can't help but jump at another chance to kill. I haven't become an old krogan by leaping at the first opportunity for violence. Not like those fools who stayed on the job with Saren. There was something deeply wrong going on there, though I don't know what.

I hadn't thought of that time in years, and so it took some time for the memory to bubble up, to recall the job, vaguely connected to a datapad that referenced a benefactor Saren, and to connect that to Shepard's target.

That human, so angry when I told him about it. Accused me of hiding information, blustered toothlessly about my possible treachery, ulterior motives. Well, perhaps not entirely toothlessly. When you've been around as long as I have, you learn to recognize the feeling of imminent violence, and it was certainly present, there. Held back by… what? I don't know, and I don't like that I don't know.

I reflect upon the krogan, my people. Or at least, my species. Because when I look at Shepard, I see something like them. And that is not a good thing.

The others might be fooled by Shepard's veneer of justice and the purpose of his mission, but I can see the violence is his eyes, his stance. When we arrive at yet another merc camp, on yet another planet, ostensibly to look for connections to Saren after I revealed he had been hiring, I know that this is a thin excuse for killing. They say that Shepard lost his family there, on Mindoir, to slavers. But I have heard a saying among the humans, that a human can lose their humanity, which I suppose would be akin to saying that a krogan was no longer a true krogan. But while a krogan who becomes un-krogan, in ungainly terms, becomes pathetic and weak, a human who loses their humanity becomes a monster, they say. Violent, cunning, with qualms or regrets. More like your typical krogan merc.

I know that Shepard is a smart human, and I know that he knows that the merc bands we encounter would never surrender without a show of force, first. That's the first rule of mercenary diplomacy, show the club, then offer the meat. Only once has Shepard done so, against a merc band in yet another desolate wasteland of a planet. I had thought, at first, that perhaps Shepard had grown more clever. But when we took those prisoners, I saw the truth, what set this situation apart from all the others. Humans, not slavers. We turned them in for a quick bounty, and still took all their gear, besides.

All the others, dead. Any merc group that gives up at the first offer of surrender would never have lasted long enough to establish a far-flung base of operations in the Verge. But having offered surrender, Shepard can justify himself to the others in the crew, while still killing as he likes.

And he is not krogan in this respect, alone. I have seen the varren trainers on Tuchanka, and know their ways. Varren don't respect coddling. They respect beatings and meat. You use both to train a varren. And it is not so dissimilar to how he treats those few who accompany us on missions, especially the other non-humans.

Obviously he is more circumspect. His beatings are verbal, mostly, though he has also left injuries untreated for a short time as lessons in pain. I almost attacked him, back there on the Earth's moon, when I took a couple rockets and fell. If the others had advanced with me, we could have eliminated them. But that wasn't Shepard's plan, and they all fell back at once at his signal, leaving me to take the heat. It was a painful few minutes until they cleared the area, and by the time Shepard bothered to look at my injuries, they weren't really worth treating.

But that wasn't it. He looked my in the eye, and asked me if I had learned my lesson about following orders.

I almost attacked. My blood pounded in my ears. I knew that I could crush his skull, helmet and all, in my bare hands. But I also knew that the others would turn on me in an instant. And besides which, as I reflect afterwards, Shepard had been completely calm. He was far too calm to have thought his life was in danger. And he is far too smart to have dismissed the possibility of violence, after that remark. His omnitool had been up, his fingers curled, possibly waiting to activate something. He had been ready to kill me if I moved against him.

It was a test, to see if I would snap and attack. To see if I could be take discipline without resorting to violence.

To see if I was a varren well-trained enough to have earned a measure of trust.

And now, as I reflect on what I have seen in these past months, I perceive more of the pattern in his actions.

The asari is weak against verbal abuse, and Shepard wields it like a hammer. He dangles the reward of avenging herself upon her mother in front of her as a long-term goal, and rewards her in the short-term with Prothean data discs we often find while Shepard is obsessively scanning entire systems for threats before landing anywhere on foot.

The quarian was, at first, somewhat the same, though she has hardened quite a bit, recently. Early in the mission, she would never have stood up to Shepard when he criticized her use of a booby-trapped wifi against the enemy VI on the moon without first consulting him. Perhaps time has made her more confident in her skills, or perhaps she has a deeper fire in her than I originally thought. Most of Shepard's club with her is now just a thinly-veiled bunch of references to her constant sickliness, which gets briefly worse after every mission. And her rewards are technical tasks aboard the ship, with occasional 'treats' of tasks in the engine room. Shepard treats her with more respect now, and I don't know if that is reward for her skills, or if he sees in her technical skills a reflection of himself, or if it some longer game. Maybe some of each, I suppose.

The humans follow his lead almost with the need for beatings and meat. The female obviously respects him greatly, perhaps for her rescue on Eden Prime, and perhaps just for his general heroic reputation. The younger male all but worships him. The Lieutenant, Alenko, is much more measured, but ultimately defers to Shepard in all things. I have heard whispers that Shepard did some huge favor for him in the past, though I haven't heard what; that may be part of it.

C-Sec is, ironically, the most pleased with deadly swathe Shepard is cutting across the Verge. With the typical turian affinity for weapons without the corresponding love of law and order, he, too, follows Shepard around like a tamed varren. In my conversations with him, Vakarian has mentioned that he was often frustrated with all of the red tape of C-Sec, which is probably why Shepard plays up the angle of 'frontier justice' when taking out so many merc groups.

When I read back over the words I have just written, it sounds as though I dislike Shepard. And perhaps I do. Perhaps I should, given his obvious distaste for aliens, and his obvious disrespect in calling us by our species, rather than our names. Perhaps he is saving the names a special treat, for once we have 'earned' our place by his side.

And perhaps is is this feeling, more than anything else, that rubs my scale against the grain. On Tuchanka, I was a leader. In my career, I have worked for many people, but never under them. And now I am here, treated as an inferior. Which I am, in a hierarchical, sense, and oh, how that stings to type. I hear low voices by the makeshift virtual firing range, which probably means that someone will soon be practicing their aim, as Shepard requires of all of us, and this triggers my thought of his place as leader.

But here I am, the great Urdnot Wrex, whining like a pup about my _feelings_. I would respect all of these things in a krogan, so perhaps I am also in the wrong, judging him by his species instead of his deeds. Would not any krogan envy his accomplishments? His reputation? His kills? To have seen the violence he has seen! To have slaughtered the slavers of Elysium, to have charged the hardened bunkers of Torfan, to have survived against multiple thresher maws on foot! What glory!

It reminds me of my Rite of Passage. Oh, how I trembled within at realization of what was coming. Both in fear, and in thrilling anticipation. If there had been many, could I have survived? I do not think I am any less than a human, but perhaps I am not more than this one.

And perhaps the true source of my angst is that, with all that he has, that any krogan would envy, he is _also_ a scientist. He is so close to being everything I want the krogan to be, though with the same foolish love of violence, and short-sighted hatred of aliens. But even so, if the krogan could have even _one_ of him… what could we accomplish? Could we re-create a place on Tuchanka to be livable without the Shroud? Or even just improve our situation enough to allow us to focus on breeding, rather than fighting for food and territory. As much.

I think of these, as I know that Shepard is, even now, meeting with representatives from several scientific and engineering corporations. None of the humans would tell us anything, but I strategically placed myself in the mess hall, adjacent to Shepard's lab, as he left, and I saw him wheel out a large storage container. Doubtlessly, as a Spectre, he has freer reign to work with them to get what he needs in terms of experiments and equipment.

Those are things that he wants… and what do I want? I told the human ambassador that I wanted to join up to work against Saren, and perhaps that I was partly true. I am not sure I know what I want here. I haven't determined what Shepard's 'treats' for me are, as I have for the others. Has he not given any, or have I merely failed to recognize it, blinded to his plays on my motivations as the others are? Or does he think that, as a krogan, the violence of our work is reward enough?

One thing I do know: His efforts are not in vain. The others look to him for leadership, for direction. As their loyalty becomes more established, Shepard grip on the reins grows ever-so-slightly more loose, and this inspires them to greater loyalty. And their skills have grown, both in constant practice aboard the Normandy and in frequent ground missions to rout what feels like every merc base in the galaxy. I used to think that if we ever find Saren and his army of geth, it would be all we could do to get evidence and flee to ask for support. Now I wonder if it will be Saren fleeing before us. He hides from us even now, and we stalk him like predators, growing more and more strong, more and more hungry, salivating in eager expectation of the kill.

…

Ah, there's my reward.


End file.
